Unplottable
by any1
Summary: Hogwarts 19961997: Harry acquires a pet which even Molly Weasley won't let into the house. Hermione adopts a completely new policy regarding rule-breaking. Snape experiences new dimensions of the expression 'tough luck'. - Sequel to 'Subplot'; AU to Ootp.
1. Harry

1 – Harry 

The Ceremony Hall on Anglesey, not far from the ancient and sacred site of Bryn Celli Ddu, was one of the most prestigious and exclusive places in magical Britain. Its smooth sandstone walls were hung with dark-blue velvet tapestries decorated with intricate silver-and-gemstones embroideries. Large oval windows let in the bright early-afternoon sun, giving a festive gleam to the treasures displayed in small niches and to the polished mosaic floor of black and green marble, displaying Celtic patterns. 

As Hermione had told Harry, the Hall had been erected in 1674 on the foundations of an older hall with a similar function. A Ceremony Hall was the place where witches and wizards held their most important celebrations. And how could there be a nobler occasion for a celebration, Hermione asked with the slightest trace of irony, than the wedding of a witch and wizard who could both prove to be entirely pure-blooded for at least six generations?

"It is, of course, no place where the likes of you or me would get married," Hermione whispered with unobtrusive mock-cheerfulness.

Harry bit his bottom lip, keeping his eyes firmly on the wall on his right. He denied her the satisfaction of an answer. A few tapestries were woven in gobelin fashion, displaying couples of magical beasts – unicorns, Common Welsh Greens, griffins and phoenixes, romping through colourful textile forests or plains together. Even though Harry was well used to moving photographs and talking paintings, he was fascinated by the way the magical beasts moved through the woven fabric. Undoubtedly, Hermione had read something about the way the tapestries were made, but he did not feel like asking her.

Hermione knew a lot about the place; obviously, even a friend's brother's wedding was an occasion for which she did her homework. Harry sighed inwardly. It wasn't even that he was not interested in the things she had to tell; for once he could almost understand why she was fascinated, and, well, upset. He only wished she would not express herself so freely right here, among the crème de la crème of pure-blooded magic nobility. Alright, among those of pure-blooded magic nobility that were not sufficiently crème de la crème to be seated elsewhere than here, in one of the back rows, just like Harry and Hermione were. 

"The Clearwaters have made the seating arrangements," Ron had said to them apologetically. He was sitting with the rest of the Weasley family in the first row on the left, of course. Harry could see the broad stretch of coppery blaze from afar: Arthur and six of his children seated in one spot looked conspicuously red in the sombre blue-and-silver atmosphere of the Ceremony Hall.

"Arthur said he would have liked to ask my parents to accompany me, but Muggles are not allowed in here," Hermione whispered, nudging him with her elbow. 

Harry nodded impatiently. "I know, and I understand that you are upset, but could we maybe discuss this another time?" he hissed back. "You are not exactly inaudible, and the people around you might not agree with your opinion. It's not really like you to care so little about decorum and ...."

"Embarrassing you, am I?" Hermione breathed, her eyes flashing. Harry shook his head, though, of course, he _was a little embarrassed by her anger. The formidable middle-aged witch next to him shot them a reproachful glance – it wasn't the first one._

"We're in a _Ceremony Hall," he reminded her softly, using the word as if it had meant something to him all his life. It had been Hermione who had explained to him that witches and wizards traditionally did not get married at a Muggle church, as there had always been a certain amount of tension between the magic community and Muggle religion: Both had been competing for the same sphere of influence for too long, namely the influence on the common Muggles. No, witches and wizards had their very own way of celebrating a wedding. Conservative, pure-blooded witches and wizards in particular still stuck to the special ceremony performed in a Hall as exclusive as their parentage allowed._

"I am Muggle-born; I could never get married on Anglesey," Hermione had told Harry yesterday, when they had first discussed the details of the wedding. "Your mother was Muggle-born, too, which makes you a _half-blood_, as the pure-blood-obsessed so kindly term it. You wouldn't be wanted here, either. If you managed to secure yourself a first-rate pure-blooded bride from an influential family, you could write a petition, and _maybe they would consider your case." _

Harry cast a sidelong glance at Hermione. She looked elegant, but annoyed – wearing a plain, but well-tailored blue dress robe, a bun almost as sleek as she had worn on that dratted Yule Ball a year and a half ago, and a rather unbecoming scowl. Even when she was silent, he could still hear her voice, lamenting over the arrogance of the conservatives. Harry wondered why she should care so much. He hadn't ever really thought about getting married himself, and if he ever did – briefly Cho's face flashed before his eyes – if he ever did, the least of his worries would be....

A murmur went through the rows of seated witches and wizardsThen, an awed silence fell: Here came bride and bridegroom. Harry craned his neck to get a proper look at the wizard walking into the Hall from behind. Percy Weasley had never been a friend of his, but he was Ron's brother and a Gryffindor. His scarlet, silk ceremony robes clashed violently with his red hair; the golden insignia of the Ministry of Magic, hung from a gold chain around his neck, made him look very official, if not well-off. Penelope Clearwater entered from another door and walked to meet her bridegroom in the centre of the Hall, right in front of the Master of Ceremony. She was dressed in a heavy, dark blue robe which looked expensive; Harry could see the numerous golden stars glisten on her sleeve. From Hermione he knew they symbolised the number of pure-blooded generations of ancestry. The Clearwaters, it seemed, had been all witches and wizards for centuries, though Ron had hinted that the family had employed something called 'genealogy cosmetics' prior to the wedding. Percy's sleeves, he could not help noticing, were decorated in a similar fashion. He would witness the wedding of a couple as pure-blooded as any fanatic could wish for – a good head start for their potential children, too, Hermione had said with a trace of bitterness: No one would ever call them Mudbloods.

Percy and Penelope came to a halt in the middle of the Hall. The knelt down right in front of the Master of Ceremony, an elderly, slightly pompous wizard dressed in silver robes. Now he extended both hands in greeting to the couple.

"Percy and Penelope," he addressed them, "you have come here to become part of the ongoing and immortal stream of magic that runs through the community of witches and wizards. You have come here because your family is flawless, because your reputation is flawless – and because you want to give the community of witches and wizards children of whom the same can be said."

The Master of Ceremony raised his silver-sleeved arms and held his hands over their bowed heads. 

"Percy Weasley and Penelope Clearwater, I am asking you," he said, "do you come here pure of mind, pure of conscience and pure of blood?"

Harry stared down at his knees, which poked out under the flowing fabric of his new, green dress robes. Then his eyes strayed to Hermione's clenched hands, to her white knuckles. He could practically feel her vibrate with wrath, though their bodies were not touching in any way. Harry turned his eyes back to his knobbly knees, wondering why Hermione was so upset. True, the speech of the Master Of Ceremony was rather sickening; but what did that have to do with Hermione? Yesterday she had said that no matter what happened, she would never want to get married in such a conservative Ceremony Hall anyway. Then why was she getting all worked up about the fact that she couldn't?

When he looked up, Harry saw the Master of Ceremony conjure up a cloud of glistening sparks which hovered about Penelope's head for a moment, danced around in a mad swirl of light for a moment, and then settled on her shoulders. The wedding guests were emitting soft oohs and aahs.

"It's a spell to prove she's still a virgin, so they know that she won't bring a sub-standard child into the connection," Hermione murmured almost inaudibly. "They're sexist on top of everything else."

Harry pretended he hadn't heard. As much as he liked Hermione as a friend, virginity (or its opposite) certainly wasn't the kind of thing he would have chosen to discuss with her, or with anybody else, in fact. Again, Cho's face came to his mind unbidden. After the events at the end of the last school year he had owled her, asking how she was. She had replied kindly but briefly that she was recovering and would be out of hospital soon. It was nice of Harry to take an interest, she had written. Of course Harry took an interest; in fact, he took more than one, so he had owled back – twice. So far, she had not replied again. Harry felt embarrassed by the letters he had written her. Of course he had not mentioned his feelings for her – he might be daft, but he wasn't _that_ daft – but he had spent hours brooding over each sentence. He was sure she did not think about him half as much as he thought about her.

Meanwhile, Hermione was murmuring something under her breath, probably disagreeing with another minor detail of the ceremony. Harry wasn't quite sure what to think about the event he was witnessing. On the one hand, he agreed with Hermione that it was an obnoxious demonstration of pure-blood fanaticism coupled with wealth and power. On the other, he was impressed by the simple beauty of the ritual; getting a glimpse of the ancient magical culture connected with it seemed to be a rare treat. He watched Percy and Penelope being joined by a shiny, magical tie. Divorces, Hermione had told Harry, were looked upon unfavourably among the old wizard families: You remained with your spouse all your life. Of course, if a wizard was bored, he could always take Muggle mistresses, she had said derisively. All the while, Harry felt Hermione's deep frustration about something he could not and she would not name. He shrugged, hoping she would come off it. Since the end of the last school year, many things appeared to have changed almost imperceptibly. One of those 'things' was Hermione; another was Ron.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For the first three weeks of the holidays, Harry had not been allowed to see his friend, but they had owled each other a few times. These weeks had been troubled times for the Weasley family. Like Cho, Ron and Fred had been hit by mysterious ice missiles during the feast at the end of the last school year; Ginny had caught pneumonia due to the searing cold of the Icy Fingers curse. While Ginny and Ron had recovered fairly well and were up and about again after little more than a week, Fred had stayed at St. Mungo's until last week, drifting in and out of consciousness, constantly shivering. It was a scary thought: Nobody knew what effect the ice missiles had on the human organism, or how they were made. They had melted the moment they were removed from the body, leaving only ordinary water behind. However, it was clear that they did not consist of mere water: Harry had seen their effect on Lupin, he knew that Dumbledore had not fully recovered from his icy injury, and he could still see how ill Fred was. Although he was out of bed and attending the wedding, Fred did not quite look like he was cured yet. He had lost more than a couple of pounds, most of his freckles, his mischievous spirit and with it a large part of his resemblance to George. Anybody could tell the twins apart now, because even though George looked drawn and worried, he was at least physically sound.

Harry understood how upsetting the last weeks had been for the Weasley family, not the least because they had had to decide whether or not to put off Percy's wedding to a later period. Since it was evident that Fred wasn't likely to die of his injury any time soon, the Clearwaters had been all for celebrating the wedding as scheduled, Ron had told his friends with a bit of an edge in his voice. It seemed that the two families were not on the best of terms. At the same time, there had been severe disagreements between Ginny and her mother: Since the girl had come home half-recovered, with her newly shorn hair and her aspiration to become a rock drummer, Molly had found faults with virtually everything her daughter did and said, Ron had reported, siding with his sister. 

After staying at Hogwarts with Sirius and Remus for the first three weeks of the holidays, Harry had spent a week at the Burrow. He had found it changed, too, overshadowed by recent events. Not even Ron's cluttered and noisy home was a sanctuary for him anymore; like many other witches and wizards, its inhabitants seemed edgy, even looked slightly haunted. It was as if the familiar place had lost its lustre. Arthur and his three eldest sons were so busy that they came there mostly for their brief hours of sleep: When they were not visiting their sick family members, they were working overtime, trying to prevent further attacks on Hogwarts, on the Ministry or on any other magical institutions. Bill and Charlie were working in Britain again; while Charlie's work seemed to be some kind of secret, Bill had told Harry that Gringotts needed him as a curse breaker to enhance the security of their main branch in London.

One thing was certain since Voldemort's attack on Hogwarts: Nothing and nobody in the witching and wizarding world was safe anymore. Voldemort had declared war upon all those who weren't willing to follow his rule; stopping him would be difficult. Even Fudge had publicly acknowledged that there might be cause to worry, talking of an attack 'allegedly attempted by former supporters of You-Know-Who.' Now the _Daily Prophet was printing disturbing news on a daily basis. Rita Skeeter had made her come-back as a journalist, and had written a number of articles which despite of their blatant lack of correct information sounded very alarming. Yet, in spite of the apparent threat on their whole world, the witches and wizards who had come to the Anglesey Ceremony Hall to celebrate the wedding of a pure-blooded couple did not seem too worried. They looked like they were enjoying themselves, Harry thought, commenting on the 'earnest and original beauty of the bride' (Harry himself thought that Penelope looked like a horse, but of course, his opinion wasn't what mattered here) and on the career prospects of the bride groom. Maybe some of the wedding guests did not have as much to fear as others, Harry mused: Maybe some of them were secretly supporting Voldemort themselves, pure-blood fanatics as they seemed to be._

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After the wedding ceremony was completed, the newly joined married couple left the Ceremony Hall in a slow, dignified stride; their families followed. First came a group of Clearwaters and Davies, relatives of the bride, then the Weasleys. It was obvious that the last few weeks had taken their toll from thin, balding Arthur and plump, lively Molly; both of Ron's parents looked like they had not gotten much sleep recently. Bill and Charlie appeared to be deeply immersed in a quiet conversation; Harry suspected that the wedding of their younger brother wasn't the first thing on their mind. Behind them walked the twins, looking conspicuously unidentical, then Ron, taller than Fred and George, and Ginny – with her ultra-short copper stubbles and plain pearl-grey dress robe, she seemed alarmingly unlike the little girl Harry once used to know. After the Weasley children followed a group of mainly red-haired witches and wizards which Harry assumed to be Arthur's siblings and their families. Idly he wondered if Ron's single squib relative, the accountant, had been invited.

The family walking behind the Weasleys were the Lobbets, Harry knew – Molly's family, followed by a couple of red-headed witches and wizards who had to be related to Arthur Weasley, but whose place behind the Lobbets suggested that they were distant cousins or something like that. After that, the other guests started to get up, following the procession.

Harry rose from his seat. Hermione put a constraining hand on his arm. "Wait," she said. "Everybody has their special place here, according to the degree of relation to the couple, and according to the status of their family. As we have neither," she said with the newly-familiar trace of irony in her voice, "we will leave this place last, and at the feast, we will sit at the table assigned to us."

Harry frowned, half-rising in spite of her words. "That's stupid," he said. "I want to sit with Ron. He wants to sit with us, too, I suppose." 

Hermione shrugged, still firmly resting in place as if glued to her seat. "Ron will have to sit with his family. That's the way it is in the society of the pure-blooded. Know thy place, live the life befitting to your birth, and shut up." The middle-aged witch on Harry's side shot them another reproachful glance. Obviously, she deemed neither of their utterances the right thing to say.

Harry sighed and slumped back into his seat, evading the interested looks of the witches and wizards who had to pass him on their way out. So I've got a scar, he thought mutinously. Ron's got a scar now, too, and a really impressive one. It's a blue, perfectly round mark on his shoulder, courtesy of Voldemort and his followers. Go and gawk at him for a change, you nobly-born pure-blooded idiots!

Conveniently near the Ceremony Hall was a Banquet Hall where feasts and the like could be held. The numerous tables were laid out with beautiful tableware for probably more than a hundred and fifty witches and wizards. Lavish flower decorations covered the tables and window sills; the table for bride and groom looked like the inside of a magical greenhouse. The air was heavy with a seductive smell of food. The guests were ushered to their tables by dozens of house-elves artfully draped red tea-towels, who were moving noiselessly on the thick carpets and disappeared as soon as their task was fulfilled. Harry and Hermione were led to a small table on the side. It was laid for four, but the other two seats remained empty for a while. Harry shrugged and helped himself to some pumpkin juice, wondering if a wizard who had passed his OWLs might be entitled to some wine. While he was still musing about this question, Hermione craned her head backwards. Harry noticed that quite a few guests looked in the same direction as her; conversations around them died abruptly. He followed their gaze.

"Excuse me, I think I might have sat down on somebody else's seat. I'd better go and find myself another table." Penthesilea Finnegan, Percy's youngish boss at the Department of International Magical Co-operation, rose from her chair. Although she was smiling at the wizards seated around her, as far as Harry knew all of them members of the Davies family, it was obvious that she was fuming. While she pushed her chair back to the table and adjusted the silverware she might have touched, a house-elf flitted towards her, asking if he could be of service.

"No problem," Penthesilea replied curtly, took her dragon hide purse off the chair's back-rest, shot one of the Davies another annihilating glance and looked around for another place to sit. The wizard who appeared to have caused her displeasure blushed scarlet, but did not move to stop her.

Moments later the tall witch with the shortish, brown curls and the silver nose stud approached Harry's and Hermione's table. "Is this seat taken?" she asked nonchalantly as if nothing had happened.

Harry shrugged; how was he supposed to know who else was to come, and which strange etiquette the witch might be breaking? "Suit yourself," he replied, not altogether politely. Hermione reached out and pulled a chair back for the witch. "Please sit," she said kindly, while the rest of the guests were murmuring loudly again.

Penthesilea sat and smiled warmly at Hermione. "Miss Granger, Mr. Potter, it is nice to meet you again." She glanced over her shoulder as if to ensure that nobody was listening in. "It is also nice to have found a place with people whose loyalties are undisputable."

Harry wondered what the Davies wizard had said to her. He knew Penthesilea Finnegan from Dumbledore's secret 'order;' she was a member of the secret guard of Azkaban and of the radical pro-Muggle organisation League. As head of a department in her mid-thirties, Percy's boss seemed to have made it already in the Ministry – because of, or in spite of her political affiliations, Harry wondered briefly before helping himself to some of the delicious starters. He thoroughly enjoyed the food while Penthesilea and Hermione were making polite conversation; the witch asked Prefect Hermione about her OWLs, which, of course, had been outstanding. Harry couldn't help feeling bored; when asked about his own OWLs, he replied as briefly as the basic rules of politeness permitted. After he had cleared the main course off his plate, he felt slightly tempted to enquire about Penthesilea's view of the current events: As a Ministry official, she might have insider information about the newly awakened threat of Voldemort. Of course, he would certainly hear about it at the next 'order' meeting, Harry decided; maybe it was not the time and place to discuss such things.

"Hey, Harry, coming outside with me to get a breath of fresh air?" Harry looked up from his plate, glad to see Ron next to his chair. He gulped down the last piece of his treacle tart. "Sure, I'm coming," he answered with his mouth full. "Hermione?"

Hermione shook her head, demonstratively spooning up some custard. Her frown said that it was impolite to leave before everybody else had finished their desserts. Ron replied with a faked dry cough, as if to say that he had not quite recovered yet and that the whims of the sick had to be humoured, something Harry had seen him do repeatedly during the last couple of days. 

"Alright, I'll join you later," Hermione promised, then turned her eyes back to Penthesilea, asking her to continue her sentence. Feeling dismissed, Harry rose, pushed in his chair and followed Ron out into the blazing sunshine.

"Muggles can't see this place," Ron said after they had walked a few minutes in silence. Harry looked around the expanse of grass and clumps of trees which surrounded the Ceremony Hall and the Banquet Hall. The area seemed too large to be overlooked.

"What do they see?" he asked Ron.

"Oh, they come along the street over there, and then they walk between these hedges –" Ron pointed north, and surely there were a few hedges lining a path – "when they go to see the old monument over there. The rest looks like meadows to them, normal, boring Muggle meadows with normal, boring Muggle cows. The whole place is heavily protected with Muggle-repelling charms. And of course the Halls are unplottable."

Harry was glad to be out here with Ron, he thought as he followed Ron towards the small mount. Since he had arrived at the Burrow, he found Ron – well, changed. Harry couldn't say what exactly was different, only that Ron wasn't the Ron he used to know. Of course, he was still Harry's best friend. Yet, even though Harry couldn't pin down his impression on anything palpable, he felt as if Ron was a bit distant with him – as if Ron had grown up in the meantime, and Harry hadn't. Maybe Ron's illness was to blame, maybe the worries of his family, or maybe Harry was fobbed by the fact that Ron was towering almost nine inches over him, still continuing to grow. Whatever it was, it wasn't much of a problem, but somehow it bothered Harry. He wanted things to be the way they had been in spring, or even before that, maybe before the Triwizard Tournament. Taking a walk with Ron towards the ancient site of Bryn Celli Ddu would maybe help them put behind whatever seemed to be dividing them. 

"This place is a Wildlife preserve for many magical creatures," Ron said in a low voice. "If we're lucky, we might see an Augurey, a Murtlap or a wild Kneazle."

Harry nodded. Ron, it seemed, had studied Harry's worn copy of _Fantastic Beasts_ well. He couldn't for the life of him remember what a Murtlap was, so he looked around to see if anything unusual romped the calf-high grass. To his disappointment, they arrived at the hedge surrounding the mount before he could spot any magical animal.

"Let's go and see some Muggles instead," Ron suggested. Harry replied: "Sure."

Breaking through the breast-high hedges, Harry had the impression he could feel the illusion charms they were crossing. Picking some twigs out of his hair, both boys stood in front of the monument. There were no Muggles around; the site was utterly deserted. So seemed the fields and meadows that appeared to be surrounding the place: Looking over the hedge, Harry saw that the Ceremony Hall had disappeared.

The ancient monument of Bryn Celli Ddu was a small, grassy mount covering a stone burial chamber. It could be entered through an opening between two large standing stones. On the opposite side, a window-like opening let light into the tiny, low chamber. To get inside, Harry had to bend down, while Ron almost had to crouch. There wasn't much to see, as a matter of fact: On the side, a small stone ridge could be imagined to form some kind of altar; a few wilted flowers lay on it like offerings. Through the window, a white engraved stone could be seen.

Ron turned and left the small chamber first so Harry could get out, too. The tall, red-haired boy rubbed the back of his neck.

"It's really not much," he said. "Charlie took me here a week ago when we accompanied Percy to make arrangements for the wedding. I guess he came here for the animals mainly, but we didn't see anything interesting. Charlie showed me this place, too. He said it was built for a shaman or druid or something like that during the time of the 'Ancient Order,' when wizards and witches were still serving their Muggle tribes. When the shamans died, the Muggles honoured them with such mounts, hoping they would come back in times of need."

Harry nodded; he faintly remembered having heard about such things in Binn's class – or was it Sirius who had told him about the 'Ancient Order?' Ron and he climbed the mount, then went down on the other side to look at the white stone engraved with spirals.

"Do you know why the place is considered sacred?" Harry asked.

"Sacred? Why should it be?" Ron replied, indisputably answering Harry's question.

 "Hermione said something like that when she talked about the Ceremony Hall yesterday – that it's the finest in Britain because this is supposed to be some kind of special place," Harry answered.

"Hermione – if she came out to look for us, she might not find us here, right? Maybe we'd better head back." Ron looked worried.

Harry shrugged and went towards the hedge to cross it. Not for the first time, he wondered whether perhaps Ron liked Hermione the way he liked Cho. It was a topic that intrigued as well as worried him; all in all, it was the kind of subject he didn't dare to breach with Ron right now, if ever. He struggled through the twigs and the slightly cob-webby feel of the illusion charms. When he had arrived at the other side he gasped. Behind him, Ron made a similar noise of astonishment: Face to face with them stood the most beautiful creature Harry had ever seen. 

 A huge, winged horse with a glistening black coat was towering over them; its large wings, folded on its sides, were covered with onyx-coloured feathers. Harry took in every detail in a second or two – the magical beast's intelligent hazel eyes, its shiny, but unkempt black mane, its nicked silver hooves. The winged horse neighed softly. Charmed, Harry stretched out his hand, and was rewarded with a warm nuzzle of the animal's soft lips.

"Harry, I think we'd better try to walk back – _very_, very slowly, I mean," Ron whispered next to him. Trust Ron to find such a lovely creature a threat, Harry thought, and patted the horse's gracefully arched neck. The animal uttered a tiny whinny; its ears flicked forwards, signalling no evil intentions. While Harry patted the creature's large head, Ron urged: "Let's get going, Harry, this is a wild creature and possibly quite dangerous."

The winged horse looked wild and powerful alright, but far too noble to be a potential source of harm, Harry thought. "I think I have to go now," he told it regretfully. The creature approached its head to Harry's, not to bite, as Ron was undoubtedly assuming, but to put its cheek to Harry's. Then it disappeared into thin air.

Harry was awed. "Did you see that? It became invisible!" A swish of large wings told Harry that now the winged horse had taken _to_ the air. He sighed longingly. "What a fantastic, lovely creature!"

"I think it was a Thestral," Ron said as they walked back to the Banquet Hall. "They are very rare, and they can become invisible. Charlie will become nuts when we tell him that we've seen one."

"So will Hagrid," Harry said, casting a glance over his shoulders. The Thestral had not re-appeared.

Inside, they stormed towards Hermione to tell her what they had seen. The girl was still immersed in conversation with Penthesilea Finnegan, it seemed.

"Hermione, we've seen a wild winged horse outside. We think it might have been a Thestral! It became invisible right before our eyes," Ron interrupted.

"A Thestral?" Hermione smiled at them with mild interest. "How nice. They are very rare."

"They've got a Wildlife preserve for many magical creatures here," Penthesilea Finnegan commented. 

"Are you coming? Maybe it will be back," Harry said hopefully. "We could ask Charlie to accompany us – he should know how to handle a Thestral, so it won't be dangerous," he added to mollify Ron. 

"Charlie will be really excited," Ron said enthusiastically and went off to fetch his brother.

Hermione looked undecidedly from Harry to Penthesilea and back again to Harry. 

"Go ahead with the boys – I'll owl you," Penthesilea Finnegan said to Hermione in a kind voice. Briefly, Harry wondered why she should. Hermione gave Penthesilea a parting nod and went with Harry to meet Ron, Charlie and Bill by the exit of the Banquet Hall.

"I'm glad to get outside – it's getting stuffy in there, and I don't just mean the air," Bill said to Charlie, slightly frowning.

"Yep." Ron's dragon-taming brother gnawed his bottom lip and turned the door handle.

 The Thestral was waiting for them right outside the door, large, coal-black and full of animalistic dignity.

"Whoa," Charlie commented, "that's one beautiful beast!" With conspicuous caution, he approached the winged horse, holding one hand outstretched for the beast to smell. The Thestral's ears flipped backwards; its eyes rolled in a way that was most certainly a warning.

Charlie backed up a step. "Testy, I see. Well, the wild ones usually are. It's better to keep your distance – they have no fangs or claws, but if they bite, kick or slap you with your wings, you will certainly not forget it any time soon."

Harry looked at the Thestral. It had not seemed dangerous when he had first met it. He wondered if he should maybe reduce his blinking and bow to it like to a Hippogriff, but obviously such rituals were not needed: The Thestral stepped towards him, and before Bill or Charlie could intervene, it had put its large, heavy head on Harry's shoulder. While the two younger wizards hurried to help and Hermione stifled a gasp, Harry patted the creature awkwardly. "I don't think it's dangerous or anything," he said. The Thestral breathed noisily into his ear.

"Be careful, Harry," Hermione whispered. Bill chuckled. "It doesn't really look like this big fellow is planning to bite Harry," he said in a low voice.

Now that the winged horse seemed calmed, everybody admired it – or rather, him, because Charlie remarked that it was a winged stallion. After a moment of apprehension, they came nearer to touch the animal: Carefully, Ron ran his fingers over the large, black wings, while Hermione stroked its nose. "It's the finest living being I've ever seen," she murmured dreamily. The Thestral neighed gently.

 The Weasleys and Hermione agreed that it was an awe-inspiring creature, absolutely remarkable. "Even more extraordinary is the way it appears to have taken to you, Harry," Charlie said. "The wild ones don't usually seek human company." He checked the horse's hooves and stroked its fur. "Yet I'm sure it doesn't come out of a stable – it certainly doesn't look like it has recently been groomed by a human hand."

"With his affectionate behaviour, let's hope he'll be able to live his life in freedom," Bill remarked. "I'm sure there's a lot of people who would like to own a Thestral like this one – he would certainly fetch a fair price."

 "Er, I'm not sure," Charlie remarked. "They are rumoured to be quite unlucky."

Hermione stepped back; then she laughed. "That's superstition, isn't it? There's no such thing as an unlucky animal, right?"

Charlie sighed and tousled the Thestral's mane. "I'm not sure, actually. There's a number of anecdotes about owners of Thestrals who were indeed hit by very tough luck, or sometimes their friends and families were. These stories are not an absolute proof, of course, and I'm sure you won't have bad luck just because you _touched the fellow. Not a lot of bad luck, anyway."_

"Hey, Charlie, are you coming back inside any time soon? – They are getting ready to dance in there. – Hey, where did you find this beautiful Thestral?" Harry turned and found that the voice belonged to Vanessa Craydon, a dragon-taming friend of Charlie who had been at Dumbledore's 'order' meeting once or twice. The blonde, strong-looking witch approached the horse very slowly. "You haven't tamed a wild one, have you?"

"If someone has tamed this creature, it was Harry," Charlie said, blushing. Vanessa, he and Bill discussed the beauty of the animal and the dwindling stock of wild winged horses in Britain for a while; Harry, Hermione and Ron listened. Every now and then, the Thestral affectionately bumped into Harry.

"There's nothing more irresistible than a creature who loves you unconditionally and with no apparent reasons. That's why we all love animals so much," Hermione remarked drily. "By the way, Harry, you've got Thestral hair all over your dress robes, not to mention Thestral spit." She took a clean handkerchief from her pocket and started cleaning him up as well as possible. Harry considered asking her to leave him alone, but realised he needn't bother, because he would probably lose that battle anyway.

When everyone went inside to watch bride and groom open the dance floor, Harry followed, though reluctantly. He did not like dancing very much. After the end-of-year feast, he had danced with Cho briefly; it might have been enjoyable, but the terrible things that had happened afterwards blotted out all pleasant memories of that evening. As he sat on the side, watching Percy and Penelope swirl around the dance floor, he could not help wondering if Cho really _was_ alright.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The celebration went on late into the night. Many witches and wizards danced; in the evening, another meal of snack delicacies were served. Harry, Ron and Hermione sat with Ginny, Fred and George for a while. Fred said very little and ate less. The twins, George told them, had signed a contract with Zonko Productions; they would work for the well-known firm as product designers, market some of their own products independently, and get to know the important people in the magic joke business. They had planned to start a few weeks ago, but since Fred was ill, Sir Zonko himself had agreed to wait a while. 

"Why don't you go and work there on your own for a while, you know, get started, while I get back into shape?" Fred asked his brother. 

"Didn't we discuss this sufficiently?" George snapped back, fear in his eyes. "We've always worked together, and I see no need to change that. You'll get well really soon, and we can start at Zonko's together."

Nobody said anything for a while, until Ginny clumsily changed the subject. "They – er – they booked a really horrible band for this event, don't you think? They should have invited some Muggles to play, if no better magic musicians could be found. I'm going to start a band as soon as I get back to Hogwarts, by the way."

Harry shrugged; he hadn't taken any notice of the band that went beyond merely acknowledging their existence. While the twins brooded, while Ron stared into nothing, apparently bored, and Hermione was trying to make polite conversation with Ginny, he went to check on the Thestral. 

Outside, dusk was falling; the sky had turned a blackish purple in the west, while in the east, the first stars were visible. The air was still warm and perfumed with a heavy smell of cut grass and flowers. Cicadas were humming their never-changing tune in the grass.

It was not easy to spot the Thestral in the darkness, but it was still there, grazing peacefully. When it noticed Harry, it came over to be patted. Harry stroked its neck, its back and its wings, thinking longingly of the possibility of riding such a noble animal. Could he? Could he really?

He put both hands on the horse's back, hoisted himself up and carefully arranged his feet in front of the Thestral's wings. Then he slung his arms around its neck. The Thestral bore all this patiently. It waited until Harry was comfortable, then broke into a thunderous gallop, flapped its huge wings a few times and took to the air in a graceful upwards arch.

Harry was familiar with flying, of course – he practically lived on his broomstick, and had even ridden an unruly Hippogriff twice. Flying a Thestral was different. The broomstick offered swiftness and autonomy; riding a Hippogriff was far more shaky and awkward. The Thestral's flying style, however, was graceful and powerful at the same time. Harry could feel the warm body of the animal move beneath him, while the wings fanned his back. The wind blew into his face; now and then, a few hairs from the winged horse's mane blew into his face. Suddenly he realised he was laughing out loud: Flying through the starry night on the Thestral's back was nothing short of fantastic. Happily, he ran his fingers through the Thestral's mane. "You are a lovely steed, do you know that?"

They landed neatly in front of the Banquet Hall's entrance. A crowd had gathered there: Harry recognised not only Ron and Hermione, but the complete Weasley family except Percy, as well as a few Lobbets, Clearwaters, Vanessa Craydon and Penthesilea Finnegan. They all looked very impressed.

"How did you do that, Harry?" _Charlie was impressed! Harry realised he must have indeed done something great. He shrugged in reply and let himself slide off the Thestral's back. "I just sort of climbed on, and off he went," he said in a small voice._

"Most remarkable! Hope he hasn't adopted you as his rider, Harry – you know you can't keep him," Charlie said. Now he looked a little worried.

Keep him? Harry hadn't really bargained for this, but now that he thought about it – why not? He looked back to the Thestral's intelligent eyes. Keeping this animal would be nothing short of a dream.

"I'm sorry, but I can't let him in the Burrow grounds," Molly Weasley said gently. "He's a Thestral, you know – and they are unlucky."


	2. Snape

2 – Snape 

There should be a law against any man having to face two ordeals a day, Snape contemplated as he walked up the path to the large, fake Tudor mansion. One ordeal per day – fine. Two or three ordeals might be a trifle too much even for the brave. He sighed, fanning himself in a feeble attempt to fend off the summery warmth. Of course, he could have breached his routine by putting off one of the two tasks scheduled for this day: Both were inherently urgent, but virtually unachievable and thus maybe not _that_ urgent. It had been mostly his own decision to attempt both on the same day, perhaps hoping that one pain might drive off the other, he reminded himself. While he climbed up the steps to the front door, he cursed Dumbledore under his breath. Damn the wizard; he had burdened Snape with both of these ordeals. The second one, Snape conceded, was necessary; the first one was not, he believed: Dumbledore had forced Snape to go and visit his mother.

"Severus, I've received yet _another_ owl from Lady Snape," the headmaster had said, repeatedly. 

"Maybe you should start keeping them – stock up on the school owlery," was Snape's standard reply to this announcement.

"Severus, she's old. She's lonely, and you are her only son."

"Albus, I haven't talked to her in _fifteen years_!" Snape only wished the old headmaster would keep his hands out of Snape's affairs.

"No, indeed, you haven't. Your father has died, and you did not go to his funeral, and you haven't gone to see your mother," Dumbledore had nagged.

"The last time I saw them, they both said they wished the Death Eaters had tortured me to death before I could turn on my master," Snape liked to remind Dumbledore. This story usually came in handy in such discussions. It meant that Dumbledore let him have the last word, or had consented to let him, until things had changed.

Now Dumbledore was ill, resting a lot, or if he wasn't, looking like he should. Snape often came to his private quarters to read the _Daily Prophet_ to him. At least once a day he asked the headmaster if there was anything he could do for him, desperately hoping that Dumbledore would recover soon.

"Yes, you can," the ancient wizard had answered firmly this morning. "Relieve me from your mother's owls. Go and see her."

"But, Albus...." This was blackmail, it certainly was.

The headmaster had fixed him with his stare. His body might be weakened, but his mind wasn't; neither was his spirit, or his willpower.

"If one of my children was still alive, if only one would come to see me now at my sickbed, it would mean the world to me."

Snape did not reply. Dumbledore never talked about his children; probably most people did not even know what had happened on that horrible night almost twenty years ago.

Dumbledore held his gaze; with a voice that would have cut through stone, he added: "Indeed, if my _son came to see me, if he came right to my bedstead in his hood and cloak, I would be overjoyed to see him. I might even forgive him if he asked for it, because everything is better than this – __silence."_

"Alright, I will go and see my mother," Snape replied, just to cut the headmaster short. This conversation was truly unbearable. 

"Go today, then," Dumbledore had urged him. 

Briefly, Snape had wondered if he should remind the headmaster of his afternoon task, should tell him that he'd rather not undertake both on a single day, but had decided against it. After all, it was the perfect excuse not to stay for tea. So, pliable as he was, Snape had permitted Dumbledore to send an owl ahead of him so his mother could prepare for him whatever she thought fitting, or rather, have her house-elves prepare it. Now that he stood on the doorsteps of the Snape mansion, he would have to bear the consequences of his pliability. He rang the bell.

A house-elf opened the door and ushered Snape towards the upper 'drawing room.' While ascending the wide, carpeted marble staircase, Snape looked around. Nothing had changed in the house since he last had been there fifteen years ago. All the heavy, velvet brocade curtains, all the too-baroque ornaments, all the oil paintings in their ornate gilt frames, mute because the ancestors they displayed were inventions of the artist, hung or stood in their place as he remembered them. Only the oversized portrait looking down on him from the top of the stairs, his tall, black-haired and hook-nosed father, was able to greet him with the murmured word 'traitor.' Snape felt bile rise up in his throat; he fought down the feeling of having travelled back in time to that distant day when he had tried to convince his parents to give up their loyalty to Lord Voldemort.

"Please enter, Sir," the house-elf said to Snape and opened the door of the drawing room for him. Snape reminded himself that he wasn't angry at his mother, that he came here not for his own sake, but to achieve a non-committal and superficial reconciliation that might mollify Dumbledore.

"Good morning, Lady Snape," he said to the fragile witch in the antique brocade armchair. He had been required to call her 'Lady Snape' since he was physically able to utter such words, and saw no reason to call her otherwise now.

"Good morning, Severus," the witch replied with a slight tremble in her voice. She rose from her seat and walked towards him to greet him. Apparently, she found neither of the tasks easy. Snape wondered idly if he should be touched by her effort. 

"I am pleased to see you are so well," he said formally, taking in her bent back, her shrunken frame, her wrinkled face and her thinning white hair. His mother had born him aged thirty-four after heavy intake of pro-conception potions, he knew, but had never thought of her as old. He could well remember her towering over him, powerful and demanding. Now she looked tiny and at least as old as Dumbledore, which she wasn't, of course.

"I am pleased that you could be persuaded to visit me," she returned with a brittle little laugh in her voice.

Like a house-elf, he took her arm and helped her back into her chair. She scowled at him, or maybe only at her own weakness. He had mentally armed himself for this visit, had thought well about what he would say to her. The frailty that had come with her old age made things a little easier for him; she could and would employ emotional blackmailing to get him under her thumb again, but he in turn could humiliate her by kindly assisting her. 

"I was sorry to hear about your husband," he said without a trace of awkwardness.

"Your father died peacefully, in full possession of his spirit, and without pain," she said as kindly, reminding him, surely not without intending so, of the last words Snape had exchanged with his father. _Sir_ 'bought title' Snape had expressed his hopes that the last remaining Death Eaters might catch up with his son and cut him into pieces while alive. Snape junior, in return, had returned that he wished his father should have little time to enjoy the comfort he had acquired with blood money, that he should suffer from dementia, an assortment of painful diseases and regrets in his impending old age.

"I regret that I couldn't be here for the funeral," he said dryly.

"You were too busy, I know. I do hope you received my owls?"

He nodded absently; indeed he had. About three months ago, he had received a total of thirteen owls, six of them Howlers – as if he was a third-year old ignoramus who didn't even know how to defuse a Howler! Finally, he had replied, threatening to behead her owl if she ever dared to contact him this way again. Sly as she was, she had turned on Dumbledore instead. If she wanted something, she would not rest until she got it.

For lack of a safe topic of conversation, Lady Snape suggested they eat. With a small brass gong, she ordered her house-elves to serve 'luncheon.'

Lunch was an opulent affair which reminded Snape of his stomach ulcer, neatly witched away by Madam Pomfrey, but never quite forgotten. "I have changed the testament," Lady Snape told her son over the meal. 

Snape nodded mutely; it was to be expected. His parents had disinherited him after their quarrel, but, he thought wryly, to whom else should the old witch leave her money and her ugly mansion? There were no other relatives – there was only her disappointing son, Severus.

"I wanted you to know that you have some financial background when you think of settling down and having a family."

Snape snorted. A family? She might have thought of that fifteen years ago, when he hadn't felt as unsociable, as infertile indeed, as he did now.

"I am too old for that now," he replied, hoping this might put her off the impending discussion about grandchildren.

"Nonsense, Severus, you're a man, and a man is never too old for these things," she snarled.

Snape almost grinned. Despite all pretensions of being nobility, his mother was a craftswizard's daughter and a craftswizard's wife, in her heart utterly practical and a bit common. Sometimes it showed, in spite of all her effort. It was one of the few things he liked about her.

"What about that new teacher at Hogwarts, Professor Varlerta? She's not quite too old yet, unmarried like any decent female teacher, and – well, her mother was a Rosier, so she might be an asset as far as lineage goes. I heard someone say you _befriended her."_

Snape clenched his fists under the heavy mahogany table, speechless for a moment. There he was, thinking his mother a senile, toothless old tigress, only to be hit where it hurt most. It must be mother magic, he decided – she had always known where to get him, and she had a knack for gossip.

"I can almost picture you in the Hall on Anglesey, in the robes that show off your noble ancestry, laying the foundations for a new generation of Snapes."

For a moment, her fantasy became his. He pictured the teacher kneeling at his side in the ancient, beautiful Ceremony Hall, her smiling face framed by her black hair and her flowing green robes, her sleeves sprinkled with – no stars at all; the virginity spell – well, never mind that. Valerie, who would not leave his mind, Valerie, who had taken Sirius Black for her lover. He resisted the urge to massage his forehead and his eyes and left his hands under the table, sure they were trembling.

"You probably know who her father was, so you will be aware of the fact that her grandfather was a Muggle. She can't get married in the Hall on Anglesey," he said to make the subject distasteful to his mother. "Moreover, I have the impression that she is – _unchaste_."

Lady Snape sighed. "A pity, really. What is the world coming to if the young witches of today act according to their _indecent_ _whims?" She arched her white eyebrows in disapproval. _

Snape felt like asking her what she considered worse, a grown witch acting according to her _indecent __whims, as she called it, or a Death Eater who had tortured other humans, but resisted the temptation._

"Severus," his mother suddenly said in a voice that caught his attention, "your father cast you off, and back then, I agreed with him. Now that he is no longer among us, I have decided to re-establish the bond between us. We may not agree on everything, but I believe that the ties of blood, of pure blood all the more, should be stronger than the ties of politics. I would like to welcome you back into the family circle."

Snape let his eyes flick right and left, a tiny movement to let her know that there was no such thing as a circle, that there was just her and him, and that this time, she was the dependent party. He did not need her anymore; of the things she had to offer, things like money or maybe even connections, he wanted nothing.

"I will have to be back at Hogwarts at two o'clock, because urgent business is waiting for me," he said after a few moments of meaningful silence.

"What business?" she asked with a frown.

Snape was tempted to tell her the truth just to hurt her, but knew that it was much safer to keep her in the dark. "Politics, as you call it," he replied curtly. Of course, it was only politics in the widest sense of the word. There might be a few adequate names for the thing he was to undertake once more, but none of them was kind. Severus Snape had made arrangements to go to Azkaban.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He portkeyed from Hogwarts to the island in the afternoon as agreed. Thick, grey clouds hung low over the water; the cool breeze of the sea failed to remove the feeling of foul stuffiness that so often permeated the air around the infamous wizard prison. The dark fortress loomed against a sky that threatened to fall on whoever dared to challenge fate, to call upon himself the curse of coming here out of free will.

Snape reminded himself that the unpleasantness of the place – and indeed the place itself – was something created for a specific purpose; the whole isle, consisting of barren volcanic rock, had been moved here by magic, designed to be as unpleasant as possible. Climbing up the steep path to the small, pinnacled fortress, Snape tried to catch one last breath of fresh air. How could the wind manage to bite his very bones, but refuse to bring him refreshment, he wondered. Yet on the island of Azkaban, there was nothing cleansing, nor had anything cheerful survived the moment it had been brought here, the wizard mused. Not that it mattered to him: He had brought no happy thoughts with him, so he had nothing to lose even within the fortress, he decided, shaking his hair one last time in the ill-reeking breeze before entering the gaping hole that was the portal of the prison.

"I greet you, visitor." Lemurus, head of the front guard, had a voice as hollow as any of his kind. 

Not many witches and wizards knew that Dementors could actually talk. They did not often use their voices, because although no Dementor's voice would ever have been a comfort to anyone, their ominous and threatening silence usually succeeded in filling humans with even more dread. Dementors liked to drain humans of all positive thoughts and emotions as effectively as possible, Snape contemplated as a slimy, scabbed hand ran along his front to check for charms. Around his neck, an amulet hung from a plain leather cord. The small piece of charmed metal told the creature to let him pass, and to let him out again after he had done his duty. Snape would not say 'after his mission had been accomplished,' because he knew very well that this would not be the case, not that day, not any day. The Dementor's hand groped for more amulets, emitting a low pant of satisfaction, if such word could be applied to a creature of his kind: Snape had come equipped with only one amulet, not two or even more as most visitors would.

If important witches or wizards visited the prison, they were usually equipped with anti-Dementor protective charms. Snape could have gotten one of them for himself: Dumbledore had even offered it to him when he had asked him to undertake this task on that fateful night more than a year ago. Snape had declined. Let Dumbledore believe he was refusing the protection out of pride – in truth he had purposefully decided to expose himself to the Dementors' powers. Never in all these years had he been able to forget that he had come very close to being sentenced to spend his life in Azkaban. He would have been buried alive in a cell far below the ground, slowly decomposing along with the rest of the guilty. He would have waited for mould to gather on his brain, for dry rot to enter his bones. A lucky accident had prevented this, but the feeling of being lucky had evaporated over the years. He had come to want more of life than just duty or even a bit of respect, forgetting that the hungry mouth of the prison was still waiting, only separated from this particular meal by a narrow strip of the slate-coloured North Sea. And yet, fate had sent him here in the end, not as a prisoner but as an interrogator, as a visitor pretending to stand on the side of the fair and innocent. The first time the slimy breath of the Dementors had grazed his mind, it had reminded him of the place that many considered his due. Well, he was here now, and he would not take a protective charm with him.

 The Dementor guarding the portal gave Snape a nod to acknowledge his right to pass. Snape briefly wondered if it was indeed Lemurus, whom he had met on earlier visits – there were few clues which might help a wizard to tell one Dementor from the other. Whatever its name was, the creature opened the inner door to a light-flooded, tiled hallway that led deep down into the volcanic ground. 

Most wizards believed Azkaban to be a dark place, but Snape knew otherwise. Light was a much more effective way of torture than darkness: Day and night, the merciless blaze never ceased, never lessened, never gave the prisoners a moment of peace. The light invaded the prisoners' brief hours of sleep, withholding the comfort of oblivion even then. In Azkaban, there were no hiding places, neither for the body nor for the soul.

Snape closed the buttons of his winter cloak with its wool lining. He had carried it over his arm while portkeying here; at Hogwarts, summer was spreading its sickeningly pleasant rays, and cloaks were not needed. In the underground cells of the prison of Azkaban, cloaks did not help much either, as the cold of the dungeons was not of a physical nature. However, it was better than nothing. 

Another Dementor, nameless and foul-reeking, opened another door for Snape. He had come to the first cells. Here were the temporary prisoners, those who still could hope to see a velvety black sky spread with stars again – only that they could not feel hope anymore. Some eventually came out to return to their families, Snape knew, while others were sent straight to St. Mungo's ward for the mentally disintegrated. A sentence of two years was usually as good as a death sentence here; if you got less, you might get away with a minor psychosis, but none that were imprisoned here came out unscathed.

"Snape, help me! Help me to get out of here." Snape knew the voice; he did not even turn his head. Behind bars, witches and wizards crouched or lay in their bare, grimy cells, tearing at their hair or scratching open their skin with their fingernails. The wizard calling out after him, one of Gordon Nott's younger brothers, might not even be a follower of Voldemort: As far as Snape knew, he was just one of the fools who had tried to skimp off from Gringotts by means of a magic computer scam, a rather new branch of wizard crime. Of course, the culprits had been caught and sentenced to serve time in the fortress of Azkaban. The financial power of the goblins supported a lobby to be reckoned with; trust the ministry, trust the wizard courts to utterly destroy those who tried to mess with Gringotts. 

"Snape, Severus Snape! Stay a while to talk to me. Tell me some news of my daughter, just a word, she was sent to Hogwarts – is she still alive?" Snape closed his ears to the voice of Barbara Bulstrode while he passed her cell without looking at her. He did not even know for which crime she was sent here, or for how long, but knew from experience that once he started talking to the prisoners, insanity lurked around the corner. Half a dozen Dementors were gathering behind him like vultures, waiting to feed on any feelings he might permit himself to have; if he ever overstepped any rule in this prison, they might very well run amok and suck out his soul without further provocation. Snape clutched his wand tightly and quickened his steps. It was bad enough that he had to talk to one prisoner, he thought, closing the door with a _thump!_ to leave the frenzied screams behind him as quickly as possible.

He saw no sense in coming here, but dreaded the alternatives. They would either have to give up, or resort to methods which would make them no better than the Death Eaters they were trying to fight. Dumbledore was against using such methods. He was against it as well, though he could not say why. Was it really a remainder of the worst, the most despicable of his personal weakness, or was it just plain stupidity that let him try the impossible again and again? His sense of futility, he tried to remind himself, was enhanced by the Dementors. That was what they wanted – to suck up the last grain of hope he still had. Yet was there hope? And if so, what could it be but an empty promise?

After another revolting security check by a Dementor called Cerberus, Snape was allowed to descend a spiral stair that led deep down underground. When he opened the door into the next hall, a wave of cold, musty air hit him into the face. At least this hall was much quieter than the first one. These prisoners had long ago given up any hope of re-establishing contact with the world outside, or of ever coming out again themselves. Most had forgotten who they had once been, and what they had been fighting for. Some were quietly blubbering to themselves; others were just staring into nothingness. Wherever their minds had gone, the Dementors would make sure it wasn't a pleasant or peaceful place. While the faces of the prisoners in the first hall looked haunted, those imprisoned here had dead faces. Suicides were rare among those who had been at Azkaban for more than two years; killing yourself essentially meant you had some willpower and energy left, some vague sense of being able to end your own sufferings by your own hand. At times one or two of the prisoners just dropped dead, however, something the Dementors might not even notice for a while. Snape wrinkled his nose: As often, a most sickening stench of decay and rot was in the air. Among the motionless prisoners, Snape saw some faces he recognised from his own days as a Death Eater, though in the mercilessly blazing light they looked more like waxen death masks than like the faces of living witches or wizards.

Before entering the dungeon's high-security wing, there was one more ordeal to be faced: He would be searched by the two guarding Dementors, called Urd and Skuld, if Snape remembered correctly. Of course, names were of little consequence in the fortress of Azkaban: Scabbed, grey hands brushed along Snape's arms, chest and back, trying to find any forbidden item that might help the prisoners locked in there. They searched the pockets of his robes, taking out the potion phials adorned with Braille labels stating their content and purpose. Again and again, the hands of the Dementors strayed to his amulet, obviously pleased by the visitor's lack of protective charms. It took all of Snape's strength to remain upright, not to close his eyes and not to throw up during the vile procedure. Slimily cold fingertips ran up his legs under his robes. Snape took a deep breath, inhaling the stench. He told himself that by now, he should have gotten used to the procedure. Finally he was admitted; when he crossed the threshold, he almost stumbled, but caught himself in time.

The high-security wing, colder and brighter than the other parts of the prison if such a thing was possible, contained six cells, all hewn into the volcanic rock of the island and partially covered with broken white tiles. The three cells on the left were empty; one of them had been Black's, Snape knew. To fight down the hatred that burned inside of him now more than ever, he focussed on the task ahead. While passing the silently vegetating figures of Kenneth Murkin and Charles Lestrange, he wondered very briefly whether today's visit would be any different from his past ones, whether his enhanced potions would have more effect on the prisoner than last time. Snape kept his eyes averted until the last moment, looking up at the cell only just before she could see him. The sight of her still hit him in the chest like a blow in spite of all his mental preparation. He always tried to stay calm, unaffected, aloof, but once he faced her, he knew he was on shaky ground.

Dolores Lestrange did not show any visible sign of aging for all the fourteen years she had been imprisoned in Azkaban. Snape had done a little research in genealogy; he knew that she would turn fifty that very year, but her unlined face and hands looked much younger than his. Framed by heavy, black hair and a remarkably well-preserved black robe, her pale complexion shone in the blaze. At the sight of him, a hint of recognition appeared in her inanimate face. "Severus," she whispered. Snape tensed his shoulders to keep himself from shuddering: While Dolores looked as young as ever, her voice, once low and sultry, now sounded broken and ancient, as if she was a hundred years old.

"I've come for the usual reasons," he said, taking out the potion phials. Dolores did not respond. If not triggered by magic, her memory was almost inaccessible even to herself, or so everybody believed: When sentenced to a life service at Azkaban, Dolores had swallowed her wedding ring, a small gold object that must have been charmed to more or less destroy her mind. Thinking about the utter naivety her guards had displayed in 1982, Snape cursed inwardly: If they had only thought of removing this little piece of jewellery, there would be no need for him to come here again and again. A simple Veritaserum would have sufficed to make Dolores Lestrange tell them all she knew – knowledge they needed desperately, as Dumbledore was convinced. Snape in turn needed no convincing; at the headmaster's bidding, he had taken upon himself the dreadful task of dealing with Azkaban's most infamous prisoner. He would do everything in his power to make her talk, except torture her, he had sworn. Even when he had come here for the very first time, the night that Voldemort had regained his power, he had doubted his own success. The mind of Dolores Lestrange was a fortress, impenetrable and deserted. Memory and Truth Potions sometimes brought fragments of her former self back to the surface, but the knowledge she had once claimed she held was probably destroyed forever. Of course, they still had to try to wring it from her mind. Snape took a pewter cup from his pocket, poured her a cocktail of different potions and handed her the cup. "Drink," he said.

Dolores Lestrange drained the cup without resisting. If she had struggled, if she had cursed and spit on him, Snape might have found his task easier; her wordless submission seemed nothing but ghastly to him. Try as he might, he would never forget the splendour of the Dolores Lestrange he had once known – Queen of the Death Eaters, they had called her, a title uttered with admiration and dread alike. Many years ago, she had been the one in command, the one who had even Lucius, Walden, her brother Evan and of course young Barty at her beck and call. The Queen of the Death Eaters would have found a way to refuse such a potion cocktail even under force, Snape was sure of that. Of course, her submission could also mean that she knew the futility of his undertaking: She would never reveal her secrets to him, whatever bizarre and dangerous potions he would cook up for her. 

In the years of her power, Dolores had been a witch with many faces. While he observed her, waiting for the potions to act on her, he wondered which of them would come to the surface this time. Thinking of the one he dreaded most made him feel physically sick. He hoped for a haughty Dolores, commanding him around in her delusion of grandeur. He hoped for Dolores the hyena, baying for blood. Yet, thanks to Murphy's law, the potions turned the witch into the creature Snape feared most in the world, the one he feared more than the Dark Lord, more than death, maybe even more than he feared himself.

"Severus," she breathed, running a smooth, long finger over his sleeved arm. "It is a pleasure to see you here." In her own, cold way, she actually _looked pleased, leaving Snape to wonder if the Dementors had any effect on her at all._

"Don't touch me," he hissed. "I've come to question you. What is your name? When and where were you born? Tell me the names of your parents and your siblings." It was a test, of course; he always asked her a couple of questions to which he knew the answers to see how well she reacted to the potions he had given her.

Dolores lowered her heavy lids over her all too familiar grey eyes; she spoke mechanically as if under hypnosis. "My name is Dolores Lestrange, née Rosier. I was born on December the twelfth, nineteen-forty-six, in the Rosier family mansion on Anglesey. My parents were Evanus and Theresa Rosier. I had an elder sister, Rose, and an elder brother, Evan." Her voice faded into nothingness. Then she gave him a sly look. Before he could prevent her, she had pushed up his left sleeve and run a gentle finger over his Dark Mark. The sign reacted to her touch by burning very slightly. Her broken voice sounded altogether differently from the voice she had used to reply to his questions.

"Why do you come here as an interrogator, Severus? You are still one of us, and you always will be. You cannot run away from him, or from me, no matter how hard you try."

She gave him a cat-like smile that painfully reminded him of someone else. Snape violently thrust her finger off his arm, repeating _'I will not harm her, I will not harm her'_ to himself like a mantra. Before he had known that Dolores Lestrange was the aunt of Hogwarts' current Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, he had not noticed a family resemblance between the two witches. Now it seemed so obvious that he wondered why he hadn't ever made the connection before. They had the same black hair, the same chin, the same eyes and the same way of hiding their emotions by unfathomable smiles. Snape tried to take his mind off these similarities by getting back to business. He would do this by the book, would not put one toe out of line.

"Where are you, and why are you here?" he asked.

"I am in the fortress of Azkaban, imprisoned for life because I participated in torturing and interrogating the Longbottoms to find out the whereabouts of the Dark Lord," she replied without a sign of remorse or pride, without any visible trace of emotions in her ancient voice.

"Who is your husband? Where is he now?" Snape went on.

"His name is Charles Lestrange. He is in there." She idly pointed at the next cell where Charles Lestrange lay on the floor as a motionless heap. If the Dementors' reports could be believed, the wizard had not stirred in years; he was force-fed and kept alive by magic only. Snape bit his thin bottom lip.

 "Why did you marry Charles Lestrange?" he suddenly asked. This was not exactly a test question, because he did not know the answer himself.

"I married Charles because the Dark Lord asked me to. I always did his bidding, and one day he will reward me," Dolores said in a low, broken sing-song. "Charles came from an old wizard family; the Dark Lord was craving a close tie to him. My husband is a weak creature, though, not a fitting tool for the Dark Lord."

Snape averted his eyes for a moment, contemplating this reply. He did not know very much about the Rosier family, but her reply confirmed his suspicion that Voldemort had used the old witch and wizard dynasty in every way he possibly could. Rose Rosier was dead; Evan had died in Voldemort's service, and Dolores abode here, still waiting for her reward, whatever that might be. Only Rose's daughter had somehow escaped the grasping hands of the Dark Lord. Snape made a mental note to re-think this particular thought during some sleepless night spent in this dungeon at Hogwarts to find out whether or not the thought would be pleasant to him then. When he turned back to Dolores, he saw a hint of a spark in her eyes.

"The mark on your arm is not the only mark you bear, Severus. I remember you, and I am sure you remember me," she said in her other voice, the voice that reminded him of the terror he would have liked to forget forever. Snape pried off her fingers which were touching the rough material of his robes a few inches below his navel and jumped back a step, biting back the urge to scream. _'I will not harm her, I will not harm her,' he repeated to himself._

"How many Death Eaters did you have?" he snarled, regretting the utterance the second it left his lips.

"Twenty-six," she said as mechanically as she had replied to his other questions, as if this was no more than a part of the test.

Snape gripped the wand in his robes' pocket until his knuckles hurt. It was time to end this thing, to finish this business before it would get even worse. He wanted to get out of Azkaban, to get out as soon as possible, and never to return. 

"Dolores Lestrange, do you know the key to the Dark Lord's immortality? Do you know how it was brought about, and can you tell me how to end it?"

"I cannot tell you," she said softly. "I do not remember."

How resistant could a person be towards Veritaserum? Snape knew that Dolores had altered her own memory, had barred doors in her own mind which no sane person would ever close. During his time as a Death Eater, Snape had witnessed the brutal destruction of people's memories several times, but the thought that someone would mutilate his or her own mind still scared him beyond the boundaries of reason.

"You know about these things," he reminded her. "You once told me. You bragged about it. You said that you were the only one who held this key in her mind. Remember! Tell me now!" 

"I do not remember," Dolores repeated calmly, as if she had not heard the command in his voice.

"Tell me about the key, Dolores. What is it, and where is it kept?"

"I do not remember," Dolores insisted, her voice as old as the rock into which her cell had been hewn.

Snape felt fatigue wash over him. He had agreed to question her, to use his knowledge of potions to extract the information even from her barred-up mind. Each time he returned, he brought a combination of potions more powerful and more dangerous than ever, hoping against hope that it might help her remember, that it might force her to tell him what she knew. He could not go on like this much longer. The dose and combination of potions he had given he today went far beyond what was legal or healthy. He might very well kill her with his potions some day without learning her secret. Whatever magic was protecting her, it was stronger than any spell Snape had ever come across; it was certainly stronger than the feeble tie that held Dolores' mind in her body.

Snape turned to leave, closing the door behind him without any word of parting. He forced himself not to look back as he walked down the short hall to knock on the door that would lead out of the high-security wing. 

"Your place is with us, Severus," Dolores said behind him in a low sing-song. "Your place is with the Dark Lord, and with us, in the fortress of Azkaban. If they do not let you out this time, you can always share my cell."

Snape banged both fists against the closed door, feeling panic rise in him. Trust Dolores to know his fears, to know that he was never really sure whether they would really let him leave the wizard prison once he had stepped through the barred doors.

After what seemed an eternity, Urd and Skuld opened and let him out after fingering and re-fingering his visitor's amulet. Snape tried to hide the fact that he was shaking, all the while aware that he was offering the two of them a tasty snack, if not a feast. Both accompanied him to the spiral staircase, obviously reluctant to part with him. Snape shook their cold, slimy fingers of his shoulders, suddenly unsure whether he could ever bear to return to this place without protecting charms. He forced himself to walk slowly even though something in his feet urged him to run towards the exit. _'I will not run, I will not scream,'_ he repeated to himself. He knew he would soon reach the portal and step into the open, but felt as if he was imprisoned here forever, as if he would never see the sky again.

As he passed the cell of Barbara Bullstrode near the exit, he mumbled as if to himself: "Millicent is doing well at school. At Hogwarts she is safe." While he uttered these words, he could not help wondering why in the world he was silly enough to offer false comfort to a prisoner of Azkaban, a witch who would not even be able to feel any comfort. It seemed that the madness of Azkaban was already destroying his capacity to make reasonable decisions, Snape thought. He rushed on and through the next door.

Finally, his hands touched the rough wood of the portal. He banged his metal amulet against it. "Let me out," he croaked. Behind him, a group of Dementors were gathering, aroused with his emotions. Then the door opened a tiny crack. Outside, the air was stuffy, smelling of death and decay. Snape forced the door open with both hands and pushed his body through the narrow gap, wondering mutinously whether maybe he was getting too old for doing Dumbledore's dirty work.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When he returned to Hogwarts, he was sticky with cold sweat; the stench of Azkaban had woven itself into the fabric of his robes. Snape craved the cool darkness of his sleeping chamber, but first he had to write a short report about his interrogation of Dolores Lestrange. He kept meticulous notes on the potions he had given her, how she reacted to them, and whether she had said anything that might be of interest. The last column would remain empty today, as always. Snape sighed, tossing his quill on the roll of parchment. Briefly he ran a finger along some of the mementos he kept on his desk – the Jade Serpent of Slytherin he had inherited from his long chain of predecessors, the tiny golden cauldron that reminded him of the Snapes' honest roots, the skull of an embryo unicorn, a fitting symbol for the death of innocence, and a miniscule crystal phial filled with a shimmering black love potion. The latter, he mused, was a token of his folly, of a longing that burned inside of him even if he deluged it with reason. He ran a gentle finger along the curves of the phial, wondering why he still kept the dangerous substance it contained and deciding that it was merely because the potion was too powerful to dispose of it – even poured into a neutraliser, it was not safe.

Snape blew on his notes to dry the ink, then pushed the scroll into its place on the shelf. He left and locked the office, glad to get down into the lowest dungeon where his sleeping chamber was. 

Snape's set of rooms was traditionally assigned to the Potions Master of Hogwarts, who was usually the head of Slytherin House, too. More than a decade ago, Dumbledore had offered him his choice of vacant offices and teachers' accommodations; there was no need for Snape to rot in the dungeons for tradition's sake, he had said. Snape had thanked Dumbledore for his offer, but had declined. He had kept his rooms not only for tradition's sake. As a Slytherin, he had lived in dungeons all his life, and he had learned to appreciate them: In the months of the brief Scottish summer, they were cool. When all around the castle life bloomed and obnoxious little birds sang, his dungeons were quiet.

He slammed the heavy, wooden door behind and double-locked it for his own comfort. Then he stripped off every garment he wore and disposed them in a wooden box – the house-elves would take care of it. As an afterthought, he cast a quick spell so the stench of Azkaban could not spread into his room. He stepped into his pleasantly modern shower and let many gallons of cold water wash over him, hoping it might alleviate the feeling of being tainted and diseased. A good dose of Roary's magical shampoo eliminated the smell in his hair. Snape turned off the tab leant against the cool tiles for a moment. Merlin's beard, that was better!

He dried off with a coarse linen towel; as always, he avoided looking down at his body. With a moan of relief, he cast himself on his narrow cot and half-covered himself with a sheet. The Potions Master of Hogwarts was not available this evening, not for anyone!

For a while he contemplated the round plastic Muggle device on his bedside table, berating himself for his weakness. He should throw the whole lot away and never think about it again. Then he sighed and pulled the thing towards him, dragging its strange cable tentacles over the sheet.

The device was a Muggle CD-player powered by magic, something Florean Fortescue sold 'to good customers only.' He'd been to Diagon Alley a week ago to talk to Florean on 'order business.' For their talk, Florean had led him into his back room where his impressive stock on enchanted music equipment and CDs were displayed. Witch and wizard musicians were his specialty, so the CDs of the _Magic Mushrooms hung in a conspicuous place. Florean had followed Snape's gaze and remarked that the band was quite cool, and that he had gotten the new album _that very day_, recorded and mixed in New York City in the breathtakingly short period of two and a half weeks._

 Snape had bought on impulse, something he hadn't done very often in his life – a magically powered CD player, two CDs of the _Magic Mushrooms_ and Florean's other recommendation, a _Portishead_ album, hoping the focus of his interest was not _too obvious to the ice cream salesman. Now he ran a gentle finger over the translucent plastic of the jewel box. Valerie's band – Valerie's music._

Of course, he did not care for Valerie anymore, he told himself, toying idly with the disgusting little earphones. How could he feel anything but contempt for a witch who took _Black for her lover? Snape took out the little booklet with its strange, immobile photographs of the band and its alien-feeling paper. Valerie had once explained to him that the reason most Muggle paper felt strange to him was because it was made not from hemp, but from trees – once and for all, Muggles were incomprehensible. Snape sighed – that conversation had taken place ten months – had taken place a lifetime ago. He took another look at the picture of the witch he despised and put the disgusting little buttons into his ears. _

He had always believed that Muggle music, much more Muggle popular music, was shallow and meaningless, one of the numerous soulless comforts for the people deprived of magical power. When Valerie's band had played at Hogwarts, the music had touched something inside him. He wasn't sure whether Valerie or whether the music was responsible, but while he had stood there on the side, listening, he had realised what a fool he had been. He had done his best not to love her, and now he had to see that his efforts had failed. Consequently, there was only one sensible path of action – asking Valerie whether she would be his, on that very night, right after the concert. No matter at what personal risk, no matter what kind of humiliation would follow – he would swallow his pride, and at least ask her. 

Then the sky had fallen on them – the feared Icy Fingers curse had hit them with unprecedented strength. He had tried his best to save Valerie – after all, she and her music magic had saved them from the Death Eater curse the last time it had hit the school – but both of them had failed. If the Potter Boy (_again, the Potter Boy!) hadn't Countered the curse, they might all have died. _

In view of the terrible events, Snape had put off his courting until order had been installed, until the imminent danger had been averted and until Madam Pomfrey and a group of mediwizards had taken care of the injured. Then he had seen it: Over the sickbed of Dumbledore, of Lupin, of the Potter Boy (_again, the Potter Boy!), the Weasley brats and whoever else had fallen ill, Valerie and Black had tearfully held hands, cuddling for comfort._

Snape could not describe his feelings on that night – he had done what had to be done in view of the outward emergency, moving like one under an Imperio curse. He had not commented, had not bidden Valerie goodbye when she left for the States, had just hoped that this particular part of his soul would die off soon and consequently stop aching. The reasonable course of action was never to think of Valerie – er, of Professor Varlerta anymore. It certainly wasn't reasonable to listen to the CDs of her band.

On the new CD was a song – he pushed the forward button to reach it – a song written by Valerie, it said in the booklet. When the band had played it at the concert, he had felt addressed, unlikely as it might be. Even then, he had heard Valerie's unobtrusive background vocals over Roary's voice. "Come to me," she had sung over the basis of a strange, uneven bass line, of the gentle but unsettling drums, of  her own slightly laid-back guitar chords. It was the moment he had decided he would follow her invitation, misled as he was that night.

Judging from the lyrics, the song could not be called a love song. Snape ran a finger over a particular mean verse as printed in the booklet, thinking he would have never felt addressed by words more sweet or kind.

_are you the man you would like to be?   
does the shell where you hide give security?   
are you afraid of the physical world?   
does your body make you uneasy?  
  
_

To him, the brutal de-masking of these lines held a vague promise, awakening in him the bizarre hope that someone might know him for what he was, would know all his faults, would look into the abyss and still love him.

Snape's finger violently hit the stop button. She couldn't have meant him, she couldn't. She loved Black, after all. Angrily he pulled the little plastic devices out of his ears. _Come to me_, she had written in her lyrics. He should have, at least he should have tried. Now it was too late.


	3. Aisha

3 – Aisha 

"Bad karma, my ass!" Aisha held the door of her apartment ajar, ready to slam it shut, but decided she had left something important unsaid.  "Look here, _honey_, I give you two hours to completely vacate this place. If you are still here when I return, you'll be in trouble – and I mean _really_ in trouble. Should you leave any of your belongings behind, you can look for them in the trash cans downstairs. Touch any of my stuff, and you're dead!"

This said, she slammed the door and stormed down the stairs of her run-down tenement house in East Side, New York, fighting the tears. Bad karma – the guy had nerves indeed. Who did he think he was? So he was good-looking and an actor (an _unemployed actor, she corrected herself), so he had managed to trick her _twice_, in the same way: Just like the first time they had been a couple, he had lived off her meagre income, using her as his means of support while meeting other women. Aisha swore under her breath as she came to a halt on the landing between the second and the first floor. Damn the man – he had sworn it would be different this time, but it hadn't. Well-meaning friends had told her that he was two-timing again. When she had confronted him, he had told her that unfortunately, she was just too ugly and to unfeminine for him, and, what's more, that she was __bad karma._

Aisha sat down on the stairs, ignoring the darkness and the less-than-enjoyable smell, trying to compose herself. Never again would she fall for a pretty face, she swore to herself. She dabbed at her eyes with a used Kleenex she found in the pocket of her leather jacket and tried to figure out what she would do in the two hours she had given her ex, fool that she was! She considered taking the subway to her band's practice room and spending the time playing away on her drum kit, thrashing out her frustration and rage. Too bad she had left her stick-bag and cymbal-bag upstairs. Should she go back up again and face her ex again? Should she go to the practice-room nevertheless, hope there were some old sticks lying around somewhere, try to make do without her cymbals? Nah, she decided and took her mobile out of her jacket's pocket.

The person to call in such a situation was your best friend, and Aisha's best friends were the other members of her band, the _Magic Mushrooms_. After considering matters briefly, Aisha opted for Varlerta, because she was a woman: She would offer Aisha a shoulder to cry on as well as the comfort derived from consuming things – probably she would order pizza, get out a bottle of wine, or similar. Later the two women might find a tacky black and white movie on some obscure TV channel or go out to a club to have some fun – possibly the best way to forget about two-timing actors.

So much for best friends: Varlerta did not answer the phone in her apartment in Brooklyn; Varlerta's mobile said: _The person you have called is temporarily not available. With a sigh, Aisha tried Pat's and Roary's apartment, also in Brooklyn. All she got was their annoying answering machine on which the two musicians sang: "Hey, how're you doing– sorry you couldn't get through – why don't you leave your name – and...." Angrily, Aisha terminated the call. She did not want to leave a frigging message, she wanted to talk to her friends, __now!_

Two unsuccessful calls later, she knew she couldn't get hold of Pat or Roary on their mobiles either. Aisha gnawed her bottom lip. She wanted to get out of this building before her ex came down the stairs, carrying his things (and probably some of hers) and finding her crying on the stairs. Too ugly and too unfeminine – the words still rang in her ears. She wanted to be far, far away. Where could she go now?

Her family lived in Washington, D.C., and even if they had lived in the same citys, she would never have gone to them in such a situation. In their eyes, she was doomed to eternal damnation for being a rock drummer, for leaving her short-cropped hair uncovered and for living with men of her choice. If she complained to them that once more, her choice had been a bad one, they wouldn't exactly be sympathetic. Aisha contemplated calling some of her colleagues at the library where she had a part-time job, but decided against it. There were two or three friendly women among the staff, but all of them were married, dependable, ordinary. In their company, Aisha felt like a misfit. Well, where didn't she feel like a misfit? With her band, she decided, because the others were a bit weird, too, and did not seem to mind the way she was. Aisha rose and slowly walked down the stairs. She wanted to see her band members, and, damn it, she _would see them! Most likely, they were having a quiet little beer in the _Basilisk Bar_ right now, a wizard club in East Village. She wiped her face with her jacket sleeve and slammed the battered front door behind her._

 Outside, dusk was falling, but it was not dark yet. The summer air smelled of rotting trash and of blooming flowers, of car exhausts and of Indian spices. Aisha walked to the subway station, only mildly uncomfortable with the fact that she was on her own. She might be ugly and unfeminine, but at least she did not look like a suitable target of an attack, she thought with slight bitterness. Everybody could see that she was far from rich, and if she gave people her evil stare, they usually left her alone, maybe sensing her Wen Do training and the butterfly knife in her pocket. Of course, the best way to ride the subway at night was to have Roary and Varlerta with her, she contemplated as she rode down the escalator. People didn't know them for a wizard and a witch, but somehow they smelled that the two of them were dangerous. Aisha smiled as she remembered an occasion on their last tour when some son-of-a-Crup, as her band mates said, had slapped Varlerta's butt in his audacity. The guitar player had only turned and looked the man in the eyes. "Last warning," she had said kindly. The man had left the club immediately. 

Aisha sighed. She knew it was no use to wish for something she would never have. She did not even _want to be a witch, really, considering the recent troubles of the magical world – it was just that every now and then, magical powers would have come in handy._

Glad to get a seat on the crowded Green Line, Aisha squeezed past a conspicuously self-assured hip hopper. The young man held his legs wide apart, giving his private parts a good airing, Aisha thought angrily. This left her with the choice of rubbing against him or keeping her legs on the side. She sighed and pressed against the wall. Varlerta would have taught the guy manners, she thought, using the wand hidden in her sleeve if necessary.

Unwilling to think either of the man she had left or the man who was taking up so much space beside her, she dreamed herself back to the short tour from which the _Magic Mushrooms had just returned. They had played a couple of small 'normal' and wizard clubs all across the US. Pat had a seemingly inexhaustible fund of acquaintances in the local music business all over the country, most of them either his ex-band-members, his ex-lovers, or cousins or brothers of ex-lovers. Like Pat, they were all 'normal' people – Muggles, Varlerta and Roary would say, and the clubs they ran were 'Muggle' clubs. Roary on the other hand seemed to know virtually all American witches and wizards. The two of them had done the booking together, placing the __Magic Mushrooms with local bands in local clubs to promote their most recent album. Financially, the tour had not been profitable, of course – without Varlerta's Ensouled Ford Anglia, which flew with amazing speed and on unbelievably little gasoline, it would hardly have been possible. _

Money, or even success had not been the point of the tour. Most importantly, Aisha had thoroughly enjoyed it. On tour, with her band, she could be who she wanted to be – not an underpaid, ugly, culturally messed up little Muggle female, but a rock drummer who went on stage with the music and the people she loved most, who travelled in a flying car and met interesting new people every night. 

After the obligatory opening gig at the _Basilisk Bar_ in New York, the band had flown to Baltimore in Varlerta's Ensouled car. There they had played in a gay bar called _Allegro_, belonging, of course, to the lover (brother? cousin?) of one of Pat's numerous ex-lovers. Aisha had found the place friendly and easy-going; seeing posters which announced a drag show, she had asked Roary why they hadn't taken Lucullus' band on tour with them. _Lucullus and the Death Eaters_ were the _Mushrooms'_ competitors and sometimes their musician pals; within New York's witch and wizard community, they were simply the 'other' magical off-mainstream band. Aisha found Lucullus and the others a bit bizarre, not because of their scintillating trans-gender flair, but because their magical habits were rather unpredictable at times. The _Allegro_, however, looked like a place where Lucullus' band would have enjoyed themselves, she said to Roary. The radiantly handsome wizard singer of the _Magic Mushrooms had only replied casually that he did not believe _Lucullus and the Death Eaters_ would ever play for Muggles._

Next on the band's list were a nice non-wizard club called the _Electric Banana_ in Pittsburgh, as well as the _Grog Shop_ in Cleveland, Ohio – a cosy little club that was special because both 'normal' and a few magical people had come to see the band there. After that, they had played in the _Clutch Cargo's_ in Detroit and a moderately bizarre, unplottable wizard bar in Minneapolis, which for some obscure reason was called the _Oz. Aisha smiled to herself when she thought of the cute wizard DJ in the _Oz_; when the night was turning into early morning, he had even played some Rai and Arab pop on her request, scaring off most of the remaining customers. _

Aisha enjoyed plain, music-oriented clubs like the industrial-looking_ Cog Factory_ in Omaha, Nebraska, where the audience was clearly 'Muggle,' clearly into alternative rock, undoubtedly there for the music. The _Mushrooms had covered for a local Muggle band, all-male, all-normal, but consisting of four tolerably talented and experienced musicians, men who even held back on the sexist jokes when they saw that the band visiting from New York had a female guitar player and a female drummer. _Emo's_ in Austin, Texas, fell into the same category: It was a place to play, to meet other musicians, to have a serious talk about drum hardware with perfect strangers, and to absolutely _flatten_ Varlerta on the pinball machine. (With a smirk, Aisha thought that magical powers __weren't the same as all-round talent after all.) The band had played on the smaller stage on a quiet Monday night, enjoying the warm night in the beer-garden afterwards._

These two belonged to the kind of club where you roughly knew what to expect when you went on stage: If you met the audience's taste, they would cheer politely and buy a good dozen CDs after the gig; if you didn't, well, you'd better keep smiling, keep playing, and have a couple of quiet beers afterwards. Of course, the Mushrooms had been booked in the other kind of club, too, the bizarre, bewildering places: Take the wizard club bar in Reno, Nevada, a place called the _"Holy shn...", much to Varlerta's displeasure. This was one of these places where everything seemed possible, where Varlerta and Roary conspicuously kept an eye on 'their' Muggles, Pat and Aisha. They had told her to watch out for herself in magical company. _

"You probably know there's a conflict going on between the supporters and the opponents of a wizard called Voldemort," Varlerta had said to Aisha during the tour. "I even believe you are aware of the fact that both Roary and I play somewhat prominent roles in that struggle. This is why I fear for your safety. Supporters of Voldemort may want to hurt me, or Roary, by kidnapping or threatening you or Pat. By all means, we have to prevent such a thing. That's why I ask you to never under any circumstances trust any witch or wizard you don't know. If we are in a wizard club, keep close to us so we can protect you."

Aisha did not like to be supervised, even by her best friends, so on the whole she preferred the 'Muggle' clubs to the more extravagant locations where witches and wizards came to see the _Mushrooms. Being on tour, playing in a different venue each evening, was exciting in itself. As Drifter, the Ensouled flying Ford Anglia, made travel so much easier and cheaper, this time the band even made it to the East Coast. Aisha had always wanted to play in Seattle; seeing old Nirvana posters on the black-painted walls of the downtown club _Graceland_, she felt awed to go on stage there between two local bands. Then there had been another of these slightly scary clubs were Pat and she were surely the only 'Muggles' inside – the __Witch On The Stake in Salem, Oregon. In San Francisco, they had played in a Scottish pub called _Edinburgh Castle_, a name which induced Varlerta to tell several lengthy and sentimental stories of her own school days and of the first time she had been to the venerable city of Edinburgh._

Aisha let the different venues appear in front of her inner eye, blocking out the dreary reality of the grimy and smelly subway. Their last gig had been in a former bowling alley transformed into a club,  _Mr. T's Bowl_, situated in some obscure part of LA. (At least Aisha found it obscure, as she was anything but a local there.) This show had gone particularly well. The _Mushrooms had gotten their groove back, almost as if Varlerta had never been away. Never mind that the guitar player would go back to Hogwarts in a week – Aisha did not want to think of that right now. She got off the subway, drifting out of the station with the crowd. Almost without thinking, she made her way through East Village, aiming for a small, badly lit side street._

The entrance of the Basilisk Bar was not marked by any sign or other means of announcement. Among witches and wizards, word got around, Aisha reckoned; Muggles who did not know about it were not among the location's target group of customers. She descended the crumbling concrete stair and opened the heavy, dented steel door that led into the underground club.

The door witch, glistening with glamour charms and expensive jewellery, gave her Muggle customer a curious look, but did not keep her from entering. More likely than not, she recognised Aisha. The _Basilisk Bar was home turf for the __Magic Mushrooms. In the good old days, before Varlerta had gone away to become a schoolteacher at Hogwarts, that weird place in Scotland, the band had played there approximately every other month. At first, Aisha had not felt comfortable there: For the crowd of the __Basilisk Bar, magic was not only a casual habit, but also a means of proving they were more extravagant than the average witch or wizard on the street. Explosions, humans transforming into different species or various show gimmicks like gravity reversal spells were considered perfectly normal there. Some of the magical customers only had a weird sense of humour, Aisha had come to understand. Others, however, apparently held the belief that Muggles stupid enough to enter magical territory were legal prey for them. On Aisha's first gig in the _Basilisk Bar_, Roary and Varlerta had warned her _never_ to accept food or drink there from anyone unless the two of them had proclaimed it safe. _

Aisha shouldered through a curtain of small, jingling bones into the club's main area, a low, rectangular room containing a stage, a bar and a few tables which were unsuitable for holding even a drink if you did not know the right spell. At one of them, Aisha spotted Lucullus having a quiet drink on his / her own. Relieved that the floor for once was the floor, and that nobody was yet floating around, Aisha walked past the singer of unspecified gender, nodding a greeting. Lucullus gave her a warm smile and beckoned her closer.

"Aisha, my little Muggle drummer, how nice to see you here. What brings a girl like you to a dangerous place like this, and what's more, all by herself?"

Quickly, Aisha looked around for her band mates. They weren't sitting at the bar; maybe they had gone into one of the more private niches in the back of the room? She turned there to have a look, but her sight was obstructed by a temporary change-of-perspective-spell. Suddenly she felt uncomfortable. The _Basilisk Bar was home turf, true, but she had never been here without the rest of the band._

"The others are back there, you know, Varlerta and Roary," she hurried to say, underlining her answer with a vague gestures towards the back of the room.

"Yes, I know, Varlerta and Roary," Lucullus replied; his / her gentle voice seemed to run down Aisha's spine like a bundle of feathers. "I also know that you are mistaken – they are not here."

Aisha swallowed, trying to ignore the goose bumps that had sprung up on her lower arms. "Oh, I'm sure they will come any minute – they said they would meet me here." 

"No, they didn't," Lucullus replied, sounding velvety as ever.

Out of the corner of her eyes, Aisha saw two tall, leather-clad wizards block the bone-curtained exit. Suddenly she realised she might be in real danger. Fingering the butterfly knife in her pocket, a weapon that would be of no whatsoever use here, she tried to think of the quickest way to get out of the wizard club without further complications. She knew that some witches and wizards were mischievous, even vicious, but she had never considered them a threat: Many of them treated her with respect, because she was a musician, while others ignored her completely. Would they harm her now that she had come to the notorious _Basilisk Bar_ on her own?

Aisha scanned the bar area for potential allies, but among the bar's customers, she could see none of her more friendly witch or wizard acquaintances.  It would have been a comfort to spot, say, the drummer of _Lucullus and the Death Eaters_, a friendly and open-minded drag king witch: René(e) would surely not have approved of evil wizards hurting a fellow musician. Lucullus, on the other hand, was virtually unpredictable: If someone decided to harm Aisha, be it for fun or for politic reasons, maybe Lucullus would interfere. On the other hand, he / she might just as well pretend not to notice, or might join them – there was no way to tell ahead of time. Aisha backed up a step, craning her neck to see whether the wizards by the bone curtain had moved at all.

Now there were four of them, wands in their hands, faces set with determination, and they were closing in on her! Aisha could practically feel the outpour of adrenaline in her body. Desperately she looked around for help. Why had she never realised that she had so few friends among the regulars of the wizard bar? Lucullus sipped his / her corrosive-looking drink, winking at her. Close to panic, Aisha backed off in direction of the bar. When she bumped into someone, she almost screamed out loud. The wizard turned; his eyes widened when he looked at her.

Aisha could have cried with relief: The wizard looked familiar! She certainly remembered his friendly, slightly lined face which was framed by greying hair. Before she could remember her manners, she had gripped his arm. Trying not to voice her fear aloud, she said, almost shouted:

"Mr. Lupin!! It's – it's so nice to see you here!"

The wizard stared at her; then he wrenched his arm from her grip. With a little smile that was anything but friendly, he asked coldly:

"Am I supposed to know you, _Muggle_?"


	4. Ginny

4 – Ginny 

"Mum, I'll be fine. Stop fussing!" With a sigh, Ginny accepted a cart from her mother. She loaded her trunk on it and put one of her most valued possessions on top of the trunk – the Shrink Box which held her drum set. She refused to put her other most valued possession on the cart, though: The best way to keep the large Shaman drum safe was to leave it strapped to her back. Molly tried to persuade Ginny to put it on the cart, too, but gave in after a very brief discussion. She is learning, Ginny thought as she broke through the barrier.

Ginny was proud to return to Hogwarts with her own drum set; she planned to put it to use this year. The Shrink Box had been Varlerta's birthday gift, sent from the States containing two perfectly acceptable cymbals, cast-offs from Aisha, the Muggle drummer. The set itself had been her parents' Christmas present; like her brothers' broomsticks it had been bought with the money Varlerta had paid for the Weasleys' Ensouled Ford Anglia. 

Speaking of her brothers – without Fred and George, Platform Nine and Three-Quarters seemed empty and far too quiet. True, there was a jumble of students and parents, but, Ginny thought as she looked from Ron to Molly, there were far too few Weasleys waiting to get on the Hogwarts Express. Redheads were becoming rare at Hogwarts, Ginny contemplated. Of course, she didn't voice her thoughts aloud, knowing that her mother would acidly reply that red _hair_ was becoming rare at Hogwarts. Molly had not yet come to accept her daughter's new hairstyle.

Ginny awkwardly hugged her mother goodbye and got into the train with her luggage, making room so Ron, Hermione and Harry could take their leave of Molly. Ron's best friends had stayed at the Burrow since the wedding; so had Harry's new shadow, the Thestral. No matter how much Molly had tried to persuade the winged horse to take his residence elsewhere, the Thestral never strayed far from Harry's side. It hadn't been sighted on platform Nine and Three Quarters yet, but that did not mean a thing, as the fantastic beast could become invisible and was likely to appear out of the blue whenever his appearance was least convenient.

Grinning to herself, Ginny got into a compartment with Rhonda Celps and the Creevey brothers. In former years, she had been proud to be admitted into the compartment of Harry, Ron and Hermione, but now she decided she had seen plenty of the three in the last few weeks. Rhonda's friendly greeting confirmed Ginny's hope that, apart from making a fine Little Miss Tag-Along, she was perfectly capable of making friends of her own now. A victim of the ice missiles like two of Ginny's brothers, Rhonda had been at St. Mungo's for part of the holidays; Ginny had paid her two visits when she had been at the hospital to see her brothers. Obviously, Rhonda had recovered well from her injury; she seemed in the best of spirits, as if she was looking forward to the upcoming school year.

As the train left the station, Ginny briefly waved to her mother on the platform; then she joined a conversation between Rhonda and Colin Creevey concerning the Holyhead Harpies' achievements of the current Quidditch season. Rhonda clearly dreamed of joining the famous all-witches team, although she was obviously aware that so far, her Quidditch skills were not really sufficient for basing a professional career on them. 

Thinking of secret ambitions, Ginny gently put a sneaker-shod foot on her Shrink Box. When the conversation came to a temporary halt, she could not restrain herself anymore. "I'm going to start my own rock band at Hogwarts this year," she told Rhonda.

All heads in the compartment turned towards her. 

"Cool," a round-eyed Dennis Creevey breathed. "Who else will be in it?"

Ginny made a face: Dennis had hit the weak spot – she didn't know who to ask. Muggle music was an art pursued very rarely at the school of witchcraft and wizardry. Not too many students played any instruments whatsoever, let alone electric guitar or bass guitar. Magic-powered electric instruments were expensive and hard to come buy; most witches and wizards were content to leave rock music to the Muggles.

"Why don't you ask Julian Hengert?" Rhonda asked. "He plays electric guitar."

Ginny bit her bottom lip. How typical of the good-looking and popular Gryffindor Quidditch Chaser to suggest that Ginny should just go up to the handsome and popular sixth year Ravenclaw Quidditch Keeper and ask him to join her band. "I don't know," she mumbled without looking at Rhonda. "He is probably too busy with Quidditch to play in a band," she suggested.

Rhonda laughed. "Oh, don't be shy, Gin. Joolz is a cool bloke. Maybe he'll be overjoyed when you ask him – after all, yours will be the _only_ band at Hogwarts!"

"Yeah, right," Ginny snorted, but when Rhonda rose and pulled her up, she followed her out of the compartment. They struggled to pass the Snack Trolley witch – she was not amused – and soon found the compartment that housed the Ravenclaw Quidditch team. (How very much like Rhonda, Ginny thought, to know which direction she had to take to find them! Ginny would have surely searched the train to the very end in one direction, only to find out that the people she was looking for were sitting two compartments down the other way.)

"Rhonda-baby, come and sit down with me!" Julian 'Joolz' Hengert opened the door of the compartment for them and offered Rhonda a seat on his armrest, which the Chaser graciously accepted. Ginny could see at once why so many girls at Hogwarts had a crush on the Ravenclaw Keeper: His well-cut face, adorned with a fine nose and a masculine chin, was framed by shoulder-length blonde dreadlocks; even when he would later exchange his leather jacket for his ordinary school-robes, when he would remove his many silver earrings and take off his silver-framed sunglasses to reveal his azure-coloured eyes, his aura, if not his hairstyle, would still give him the air of the sexy rebel.

Ginny looked around shyly, unsure whether to step through the door as Rhonda indicated. In the compartment sat the victorious, cup-winning Ravenclaw Quidditch team in all their exclusive glory – Julian Hengert, Brad Staggon, Ray Peasegood, Ragnar Lovegood, Richard Davies and Cho Chang, widely popular students who hardly ever looked at someone like Ginny. Rhonda seemed to know them all; they greeted her like an old friend. Of course, Rhonda was a Quidditch player herself, while Ginny was at best the little sister of the averagely talented Gryffindor Keeper. No one asked her in, until Rhonda said: "Joolz, I'm sure you know Ginny Weasley."

"Hey Ginny, come in and sit here." Cho Chang's friendly invitation was an encouragement, and even though she did not dare to sit on Cho's armrest as indicated, she stepped into the compartment at last.

"Hi Cho," she said, much too softly to sound casual. "Hi Julian, I'm Ginny." She could have kicked herself for being so idiotically shy.

"Joolz, you probably know that Ginny is a drummer," Rhonda said in a tone of pride which made Ginny feel wildly overrated. 

"Oh, are you?" Joolz asked Ginny in reply, politely interested.

"She's going to start a band, and I thought as you played the electric guitar, maybe I should introduce you two to each other. Later, when _Witch Weekly_ asks you how the band got together, you can always give me credit for starting it all, I figured."

Ginny felt the blood rise into her face. She would have liked to run off and hide, but felt this was not the appropriate behaviour for a future rock drummer. "You know, get a couple of students together, see if we can play a couple of songs...." she said lamely.

"A band!" Joolz' eyes rested on Rhonda; he looked truly interested now. "You actually think that Rock'n'roll has finally come to conservative old Hogwarts? Well, why not? A band would be cool." Ginny felt her heartbeat speed up; she could hardly believe that Joolz would even consider playing with her.

"So say, Rhonda-baby, what will you be doing in the band? Will you sing?" Joolz gave the Gryffindor Chaser a pointedly flirty look.

Rhonda and Ginny exchanged horrified glances. Ginny knew that Rhonda could not sing for two knuts' worth, and inferred from the look on Rhonda's face that the Chaser was aware of this. On the other hand, Joolz was probably the only guitarist of the school, and he _did seem interested to have Rhonda in the band._

"No, Rhonda said she would try the bass guitar," Ginny said and nudged Rhonda with her foot.

"Oh, you play the bass guitar, Rhonda?" Joolz looked impressed. "I didn't even know that. Well, the line-up of our band is settled, then, I suppose."

"Well, I just started, so I suppose I'm not very good yet," Rhonda murmured modestly. She gave Ginny a look which plainly said something in the lines of: 'Are you mental? I don't even know how a bass guitar differs from a non-bass guitar, let alone ever touched one!'

"A Ravenclaw-Gryffindor rock band, how lovely," Cho Chang commented delighted. "You could play at common room parties and school parties and the like before you make your way into international stardom. The two of you will have loads of male groupies, I suppose." The last remark was directed at Rhonda and Ginny, who giggled obligingly.

"How are you, Cho?" Ginny asked. "Did you recover well from your injury?" She knew that Cho had been at St. Mungo's together with Fred and Ron, but had only ran into her very briefly there.

"Thank you, I'm much better." Cho smiled and moved her right arm, probably to show that she had full use of it again. "After a couple of potions and a bit of physical therapy, I'm all set for the new Quidditch season," she said proudly.

"No black Wasp stripes for you this year, Cho?" Ragnar Lovegood asked her with a mean gleam in his eyes.

"Stop slandering me, Ragnar." Cho slapped him on the arm, purposefully missing his face by hardly an inch. To Ginny and Rhonda, she said: "He is trying to make everyone believe I was taking Hawk Potion last year when we won the final, which of course I wasn't, and never will." She turned to Lovegood: "Can't see why you are spreading this rumour. You know it isn't true, and it isn't doing our team any good if people believe I am taking illegal substances."

Seeing Ginny's bewildered look, Rhonda explained: "Hawk Potion is supposed to sharpen your eyes, to make you a better flyer et cetera, but of course it's forbidden in Quidditch matches. The year before last, a few players of the Wimbourne Wasps were involved in a Hawk Potion scandal, and the Potion itself is pitch black – that's why they call it 'the Wasps' black stripes.' I think we will learn how to make it in Potions this year, if the old fart hasn't changed the curriculum, but of course no one in a Hogwarts Quidditch team would take this stuff illegally."

The 'old fart' was Snape, Ginny supposed. She reminded herself that she was in the compartment of the cool rebels, so she nodded vigorously, although she did not agree wholeheartedly. It wasn't as if she _liked_ Snape – blimey, _nobody_ liked Snape. However, in the course of the last year she had learned a few things about him which led her to partially understand him: Probably there are some things you can't share without developing at least a little respect for each other, and for her, fighting about a dozen bloodthirsty Death Eaters was one of them.

The rest of the train ride went by much faster than usual. Hanging out with the Ravenclaw Quidditch team turned out to be a lot of fun. At first Ginny was taken aback by the way all of them, or at least the males, were so very self-assured. However, if Ginny, Rhonda and Joolz were to form Hogwarts' coolest and most celebrated rock band (well, Hogwarts' _only_ rock band!), maybe Ginny would in time become as cool, perhaps even as popular as the Ravenclaw Quidditch players, she began to hope. The mere idea made her slightly dizzy. When Cho inquired about the health of Ginny and her brothers at length, when the other students listened to her with interest, when all of the Ravenclaw team painted the lives of Hogwarts' rock-stars-to-be in the most vivid colours, Ginny felt happiness take hold of her. As the train rolled into Hogwarts station and Rhonda and she returned to their own compartment to retrieve their luggage, Ginny hummed to herself: "...and I-I had the feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When it was time to get into one of the horseless carriages at Hogwarts station, Ginny looked around for Rhonda and for her new friends, but as she couldn't spot them, she followed Hermione, Ron and Harry into one of the vehicles. The three were in the middle of a discussion – or rather, Hermione was doing most of the talking. Since the wedding, Ginny found the older girl edgy and tense; something was different about her – or was she maybe just growing up?

 "And then there are all the protests against DDLL – you know, many people believe that by putting further emphasis on pure-bloodedness, they are smoothing the way for re-establishing laws which put Muggle-born witches and wizards at disadvantage," Hermione said with feeling as she let herself fall onto the carriage's front bench.

"Don't get all upset, Hermione, we _know_ that the world is an evil place," Ron said in a rather patronising voice as he sat down opposite to her. "Just relax and enjoy life. Tomorrow, You-Know-Who will come and ruin the world for all of us, so why spoil today with worrying about something as trivial as the DDLL?" He stretched excessively, accidentally knocking off Harry's glasses with one of his long, dangly arms. 

As the daughter of a Ministry official, Ginny knew what the DDLL was, of course._ If anyone ever wanted to see Arthur Weasley in one of his foulest moods, all that had to be done was mention these innocent four letters, which stood for the office next to his within the Ministry building: __Department for the Discovery of Lost Lines. When he had visited his children at St. Mungo's, Arthur had explained to Ron and Ginny why the mere existence of the institution offended him so much:_

"You probably know that a long time ago, Muggles and wizards were kept strictly separate. Intermarriage was strongly discouraged, if not forbidden. Muggle-born witches and wizards were seen as a great problem; usually they were –" Arthur had given his children a searching look to find out whether they were old and well enough to know the truth. "The old wizard families wanted to keep their magical powers to themselves, so Muggle-born magical children were often killed," he had finally said in a very sad voice.

"Another flaw in the system," he had continued, "were the squibs. If an old wizard family had a child without magical powers, it was considered a stain on the family honour. The birth of a squib was usually hushed over, and the child was given away to Muggle foster parents rather than killed. 

"Later, when many witch and wizard families were practically wiped out by hereditary diseases, intermarriage regulations were lifted, and Muggle-born witches and wizards were left alive because they had become desirable spouses. However, old wizard families who weren't affected by those problems often prided themselves of remaining completely pure-blooded. Also, there is a rumour – mind you, I say a _rumour, because these things have never been scientifically proved – that the squib children raised as Muggles carried magical genes, and therefore are the ancestors of the Muggle-born witches and wizards. Of course, this is very difficult to prove, because the old families usually avoided keeping any kind of record about their cast-off squib children, and the Muggles didn't know better. That's why the Clearwaters had such difficulties getting Penelope's and Percy's wedding accepted at Anglesey: They had to find documents proving that Penelope's grandmother was not, as believed, a Muggle, but a pure-blooded Parkinson squib. That's the kind of document the DDLL tries to find for you, provided you're willing to pay for it." Ginny remembered the contempt in her father's voice; he held the strong belief that these things should not matter so much to anyone, and that it was highly suspicious if they did._

Ginny believed the same, and so did Ron, but she knew that for Hermione it was another matter. Hermione was not only directly affected by these things; she was also – well, _political. While Ron was making fun of Hermione by suggesting she should start a house-elves riot within the DDLL office, Ginny looked out of the window into the rainy Hogwarts grounds. Another school year was starting for her, and she was glad to go to a place where Ministry politics were at least not in the centre of interest. Thinking of the band she was going to start, she smiled at her dim reflection in the window._

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 "Ginny, there you are! I searched the whole train for you, but I couldn't find you in any of the Gryffindor compartments! How are you? Are you well again?" She had hardly set a foot out of the carriage when Neville's voice greeted her. Her fellow audio magic apprentice seemed to have grown over the summer, but his face was as round as ever. He had sent her a few owls to hospital and one to the Burrow; Ginny tried to recall whether she had answered them all, but if she hadn't, Neville did not appear to bear a grudge.

"Thanks, I'm much better. Did you enjoy your holidays?" Together they walked into Hogwarts' Entrance Hall. Neville told her that he had taken flute lessons over the holiday, after his grandmother had only grudgingly allowed him to visit the old Muggle teacher in her home. Ginny was tempted to tell him about her band plans, but then decided to keep them to herself for another while.

"Look, there's Professor Varlerta! She's back then, like she said she was," Neville said happily when they entered the Great Hall; then he added with pride: "She wrote me during the holidays, you know – she sent a postcard from Seattle, saying she hoped I was enjoying my flute lessons. You should have seen the postman. He was scared out of his wits because he had to come up to our house. Apparently, he hasn't had any letters to deliver since great-uncle Algie bounced him across the grounds about ten years ago."

Ginny nodded; Professor Varlerta had written to her, too, asking whether she was recovering well from the pneumonia she had caught at the end of the last school year, and for Ginny's birthday she had sent the Shrink Box. Ginny was glad to see that for once, a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher had managed to return to Hogwarts for a second year of teaching. As her audio magic apprentice, she did not consider Varlerta just one among many teachers; rather Varlerta was Ginny's and Neville's mentor, maybe even their friend. What's more, the two audio magic apprentices had helped save the teacher's life last spring, which should certainly account for something. When she caught her teacher's eye, saw her wave and waved back, Ginny thought that Varlerta surely wasn't sending away birthday presents to all her other students.

Arriving at their house tables only slightly wet, the Hogwarts students sat down under a ceiling grey with clouds and awaited the Sorting of the first years. To Ginny, the new students looked incredibly young; their round eyes suggested fear and apprehension. She eagerly awaited the Sorting Hat Song, as the old hat was one of the most musical things at Hogwarts and had a beautiful basso voice. Suddenly she wondered by which magic the hat was able not only to find and rhyme the words for a new song each year, but also to compose a new tune to go with it. Was there a spell that could make a thing a composer – and if so, how had Godric Gryffindor found it? While the old Sorting Hat was brought in and placed on its stool, Ginny mused whether Gryffindor, the founder, had been a musician himself. Then she turned her attention to the hat, which opened its felt mouth and sang a rather lively, but somehow also sombre folksong-like melody in twelve-eight time:

_In times remote and ancient,  
When we still lived in clans,   
Young wizards and young witches learned   
Their elders' skills by chance._

_The lands were bare and empty  
No halls of learning stood  
On these deserted moors, until  
The Founders said they should._

_They built up Hogwarts Castle  
Most magical of schools,  
Then thought up a curriculum  
To bind their powers in rules._

_But when they started teaching,  
They found they disagreed  
On magic's nature and its aim,   
On Hogwarts' magic creed._

_So by the by, they wondered  
Which spells and charms to teach:  
"What's magic, and which powers," they asked,  
"Should be within our reach?"_

_Sweet Hufflepuff just chuckled:  
"'tis strange that you should ask,  
I've known since first I raised my wand  
That magic is a task__."_

_But Gryffindor, the warrior  
Said: "Magic is a blade__;   
To fight all evil is the truest   
Magical crusade."_

_Wise Ravenclaw retorted:  
"No, Magic is a lore__,  
Is learning and is knowledge  
With power in its core."_

_Coy Slytherin did not agree:  
"True magic is a tool__,  
To shape the world, the people, too,  
To bend them to your rule."_

_The founders talked and argued  
All day, and through the night,  
Until they found that magic's aim   
Was not theirs to decide,_

_Because their magic students  
Would put their powers to use  
In their own ways: The aim of them  
Is each of yours to choose._

The artisan, the scholar  
Both have a task to do;  
Adventurers and strategists,  
Our time needs all of you.

_My task is now to sort you  
According to your strength.  
It's up to you to find your powers,  
To find yourselves at length._

At all four house tables, the students of Hogwarts cheered. Ginny wondered if anybody had ever thought of writing down the words and tunes the Sorting Hat sang, if there was a Sorting Hat Song archive. While the Sorting began, she also pondered the words of the song. As a Gryffindor, she was supposed to use magic as a weapon. This seemed to fit someone like Harry, who had taken on a Basilisk single-handedly, or someone like Hermione, who was always ready to fight if she believed something in the world was not fair. Even Neville seemed more of a warrior than she; Ginny remembered how he had made her fight the Icy Fingers curse with him at the end of the last school year, how he had fought the Death Eaters with his flute magic. Ginny on the other hand wondered what she would find if she found her own 'true powers' one day – wasn't it rather that she would be a rock drummer, not a warrior? She knew she would fight at need, but she wasn't at all sure that this was what she wanted to do with her magical powers. Maybe she was only a Gryffindor because after six Weasley children, the hat hadn't given her much thought; it had told her where it would put her as soon as it had touched her ears. Of course, there wasn't a separate Hogwarts house for musicians, Ginny mused as she watched the Sorting. Then again, there hardly seemed to be even a separate house for the Slytherins anymore; like last year, the number of new students sorted into this house had drastically declined.

After the last of the small- and fragile-looking first years had taken a place at Gryffindor table, Dumbledore rose to address the school. A murmur rose in the Great Hall, and Ginny raised a hand to her mouth in shock: She had known that after the ice missile attack, Dumbledore was ill, but knowing it and seeing it were two different things. The headmaster had always looked ancient to her, but now he looked – well, _old, as in 'close to death.' The skin on his face fell into a million of papery wrinkles; his hands looked almost transparent. Ginny had the impression that standing up was an effort for him now. Snape, seated at Dumbledore's side again, had risen with him, apparently ready to catch the headmaster should he falter. His eyes, no, all eyes behind the staff table except Dumbledore's, were dark with worries._

"My dear students of Hogwarts," Dumbledore said in a voice that was still able to fill the whole Hall with its melodious resonance, "I am infinitely glad to see you all here. As you know, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is not only an institute of learning, but has also been a sanctuary for those who have to fear the ever-grasping hand of Lord Voldemort. For many years now, Hogwarts has been a safe place. After the attack on the school before the holidays, we all wondered whether this still is the case. Many of you were hurt, although luckily, no one was killed. I am eternally grateful for that, but I cannot keep from you that we are living in dark and dangerous times.

"Lord Voldemort and his followers have attacked Hogwarts, hoping to eliminate his enemies and to scare you all into serving him. We, the staff of Hogwarts, in fact, all of the magic community still opposing the Dark Side, we all make it our utmost priority to protect you, as you are our treasure, our hope and our future.

"As much as I want to tell you that you are absolutely safe, either here or anywhere else, I cannot do that, because that would mean to deceive you. However, spending our time in fear is what Voldemort wants us to do. He wants the brave to cower in hiding, and the loyal to betray their friends; he wants us to shy away from our obligations to each other; he wants to destroy our strength, our unity. That must never happen. I therefore implore you to mind the danger, but to keep your fears in check. We have to use all peaceful moments to equip you with your best defence – a sound magical education. Take your studies seriously – what you learn tomorrow might just be the thing you will need at the end of the week. 

"Our Spellsearchers have made great progress in learning to fight the evil Icy Fingers curse, and just now stand on guard to protect this feast from another attack of ice missiles. The enemy's next weapon we do not know, but we will do our best to teach you how to defend yourself and your friends against all curses known in the magical world. 

"Alas, I wish that curses were Voldemort's most deadly weapon – be assured that this is not the case. More deadly to us than the Icy Fingers curse is treachery amongst ourselves. Therefore, most importantly, I implore you all: Be loyal to yourself, be loyal to those dear to you. If you feel threatened, blackmailed or bribed by anything or anybody, talk to your teachers or your parents; they are asked to take you seriously. If anybody asks you to spy, to betray us, to work for the Dark Side, think of the loss for all of us, not of any short-lived gains for yourself. I and those who follow me do not have to offer what Voldemort may offer you – riches, hidden powers or forbidden pleasures. However, keep in mind that it is not in Voldemort's power to give you what we have to offer you: True friendship, loyalty, a clear conscience and the honour of caring for those you love."

After Dumbledore had spoken the last words, the Great Hall fell into absolute silence for a few seconds. Ginny could see Snape and Professor McGonagall support Dumbledore below his elbows, ready to steady him if a sudden weakness took hold of him. More than his speech, the headmaster's weakness had poured a bucketful of fear into Ginny's heart; her fellow students seemed to feel the same.

Suddenly Harry rose from his chair. "The Gryffindors will never serve Lord Voldemort!" he shouted with a firm adult voice which Ginny had not noticed before. 

For a moment, nobody reacted; Ginny could see Harry become beet red. He must believe he said something stupid, she realised and felt a sudden urge to prove this belief wrong. She stood up quickly; next to her, Ron's chair toppled backwards, while Hermione's was neatly pushed aside. "The Gryffindors will never serve Lord Voldemort!" Ginny repeated as loudly as she could; the magical Shaman Drum strapped over the back of her chair responded with a low vibration. 

"The Gryffindors will never serve Lord Voldemort!" Now more than sixty voices shouted this spontaneous pledge; all Gryffindor students were on their feet now, the first years at least as eager as the older students.

"The Hufflepuffs will never serve Lord Voldemort!" Ginny saw the Hufflepuff table rise as one; they appeared just as determined as the Gryffindors.

"The Ravenclaws will never serve Lord Voldemort!" Cho and Padma Patil, both victims of ice missiles, had been waiting for their housemates to rise. When Joolz Hengert jumped onto his chair, his fist raised in the pose of a hero, Ginny felt a jolt in her stomach. She wondered if all of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team had joined in the shout, or if, say, Richard Davies hadn't, but all in all, the Ravenclaw table seemed almost as united as the Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors.

"The Slytherins will never serve Lord Voldemort!" Diminished as the house of Slytherin was, it was clearly audible that most of them had accepted the challenge, and had proclaimed loyalty to Dumbledore rather than the Dark Side.

Ginny looked back to the High Table. Professor McGonagall's eyes were brimming with tears; Dumbledore was visibly leaning on her arm. Flitwick was beaming, Sprout was wiping her eyes, and Hagrid was blowing his nose into an oversized handkerchief. Professor Varlerta's face was lit by a luminous smile; she carefully tucked at Snape's sleeve. For the fraction of a second, the two teachers exchanged a glance, but then Snape tore his sleeve out of Varlerta's fingers and turned his face the other way. Somewhere back at the Slytherin table, two students started talking in low voices. Ginny felt herself exhale deeply. The moment had passed, but she was sure she would never forget it.

Dumbledore raised his hand again; he looked far happier than at the beginning of his speech. "My dear students, I am touched by your pledge of loyalty. May your deeds always match your words!" He hesitated a moment, then continued in a more sombre voice. "Do not betray the trust I put in you by telling you that on the east end of the Hogwarts grounds, you will probably not find a League refugee camp. I say 'not find,' because special spells have been put up to keep the refugees and the students of this school separated. If you do not know the way through the magic passage, you will not see or hear anything of the camp. The refugees are members of the secret organisation called 'League,' which opposes Lord Voldemort; as they are pursued by the Death Eaters, they need all the protection we can give them. However, although I have consented to protect their lives, I strongly discourage all Hogwarts students to attempt communication with the refugees, as some of their political activities are nothing of which I or any of your teachers approve."

Ginny found this news slightly disconcerting. Recalling the order meetings she had attended during the last school year, she guessed that Dumbledore had been far from happy to accept activists of the occasionally violent League as refugees on the school ground. She wondered why he had told the students about the existence of the camp, but decided that if students somehow found their way into the hidden League camp by accident without being warned, an awkward situation might arise.

When the golden dishes and goblets filled themselves with food, all of it first-class Hogwarts quality as usual, Ginny happily filled her plate. She knew there was plenty of cause to worry, but agreed with Dumbledore: A school full of terrified students waiting for the end to come, that was exactly what Voldemort wanted. Yes, Voldemort: In spite of all her parents taught her, like her fellow students, she was becoming more and more accustomed to call the evil wizard by his name, to acknowledge the shadow he was throwing on the times they were living in. It might not be the best of times to fulfil herself a dream and start a band; but then, trying to live her life the way she wanted to, in spite of all the troubles of the world, seemed one among many ways to defy the Dark Side.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ginny's first day of lessons went by much as expected. Potions would never be her favourite subject, but somehow Snape seemed subdued on that first day; either the hatred he bestowed on any member of the Weasley family had worn off over the time, or he was too troubled to be more than averagely mean to her and the rest of the Gryffindor fifth years. Transfiguration still wasn't any special talent of Ginny either, but at least she wasn't completely hopeless, while her training with Varlerta had improved her charms skills considerably. 

Professor Varlerta had asked her apprentices to meet her briefly after classes to agree on a time-table for the upcoming year. As the classes Ginny and Neville had given up to become audio magic apprentices did not always take place at the same time this year, this proved to be a little difficult, but in the end, they found a way to meet three times a week for their practice sessions. Varlerta also announced that she expected Ginny to help her train her year-mates in Strengthening this year, as she was well ahead of them because of her work with Varlerta. Ginny wasn't sure whether she was happy with such duties; being singled out had not always contributed to her popularity in Gryffindor tower. However, she saw that Varlerta had a point, and was mollified when the teacher announced that successful teaching activities would count for a OWL-credit in Defence Against the Dark Arts.

Ginny thanked Varlerta for the Shrink Box and told her about her band plans. The witch beamed at her. "I was hoping you'd do that," she told her. "I talked to Dumbledore about a potential band room, and he said there was an unused classroom in the school's west wing. I checked it out, and I'm afraid it's got horrible acoustics, but for a start it will have to do. There's a spare bass amplifier and a guitar amplifier you can use, and maybe Roary will ship me a small used PA later. You've got your own drum kit, so I suppose you're all set."

"That's really great, thank you," Ginny replied. "Er... do you maybe happen to have an old bass guitar which Rhonda might use?" Over breakfast, she had tried to talk the Gryffindor Chaser into fulfilling a promise which Rhonda had never really given, namely learning to play bass guitar to join Ginny's band. The girl's reaction had not exactly been enthusiastic, but Ginny had elaborated on how much Joolz Hengert would like Rhonda to come, hoping that this was her best means of persuasion. In the end, Rhonda had taken back her downright refusal and promised to think about it.

"Morgana's rear end, what else do you want?" Varlerta looked like she had maybe expected a little more gratitude on Ginny's part rather than hearing just another request, but Ginny knew from experience that the teacher would be a good sport about it.  

"Hm, maybe you could show Rhonda a few things on the bass, you know, get her started?" Ginny replied softly, her eyes firmly on the floor.

Varlerta only snorted in reply, but did not explicitly say she would do no such thing, which Ginny took to be a good sign. It was time to get the band started.


	5. Sirius

**5 – Sirius**

During the last school year, Sirius had often wished for the holidays, had wished for a time when he could move about in the school more freely. He wasn't complaining; working as a Spellsearcher together with Remus was, if not a vocation, at least a worthwhile occupation. However, his presence at Hogwarts had to remain a secret, and even Remus was not supposed to be seen by the students too often. Of course, some students had known that they were looking for a way to Counter Icy Fingers in the Spellsearchers' Lab in the castle's west wing – Harry, Ron, Hermione as well as Varlerta's apprentices, Ginny and Neville.

Varlerta – she was the reason why he had wished for the holidays to end as soon as they had begun. He had been interested in her – in love with her, he corrected himself – for quite a while. Because of Murphy's law, or maybe because of his own cowardice, he hadn't succeeded in striking up a relationship with her until a few days before she had flown to America. He had hardly been able to believe it when she had left the half-blown bud of their love behind just because she and her band were going to record a new album – well, maybe they had had other things to do in the States, but she hadn't told him much about it. 

Communication had been a bit difficult during these weeks: Most owls could not cross the Atlantic. Instead, she had sent her three letters and two postcards to Florean Fortescue in London by 'snail mail,' as she called it – a Muggle way of sending letters which took a very long time, even though Sirius was sure that there were no real snails involved. Florean in turn had sent the letters to Sirius per owl. To write her back, Sirius had to reverse the whole procedure, owling his letters to Florean and hoping that the ice cream merchant sent them on with Muggle snails. Anyone who had ever been newly in love would have found such meagre means of communication rather painful, he thought.

Now the holidays were over, Varlerta was back, and so were the students. Again, the two of them could not walk hand in hand along the shore of the lake without means of protection such as Harry's Invisibility Cloak. Sirius found himself wishing for a little time the two of them could have all to themselves – no students to avoid, no classes for her to prepare, no curses to for him counter. It would have been nice, a nagging voice inside of him said, if he could have Varlerta and holidays at the same time. But all in all he was happy – his lover was back with him, the only lover he had ever had, and he finally felt he was escaping the shadow of Azkaban.

In the late afternoon, after her classes were over and his Spellsearcher's duty was done, he put on Harry's Cloak and walked out to her sound-proof building. Her apprentices were still there: Ginny was harassing Varlerta about a broken bass amplifier, while Neville just stood on the side and looked slightly unhappy. They hardly noticed him when he came in, he realised, but told himself that he should not take the fickleness of teenagers personally. Varlerta seemed very happy to see him, and that was what mattered most, after all. While she took care to get rid of her apprentices quickly, but in a friendly manner, he went over to the CD player, making use of a privilege reserved for someone who had been asked to feel at home in her place. Digging through the shiny plastic CD cases piled on top of the stereo, he realised that most band names were unfamiliar to him; unwilling to put on some music he didn't know, he finally settled for the Beatles' _Abbey Road_ for memories' sake, feeling distinctly outdated. 

When they were alone, Varlerta came up to him for a hug. However, after greeting him with a few kisses, she gave him a troubled look. "I went into town to use a phone this morning when I had an hour to spare," she told him.

He nodded, knowing that for Varlerta and her overseas connections, Muggle telecommunication was as important as a good owl was for most people. If not for Hogwarts' dense magical atmosphere, she would have hooked up a Muggle device called computer to a network called internet, she had told him at length – a network that would have permitted Sirius and her to exchange letters far more easily over the holidays. As it was, she had to leave the grounds even to make a phone call.

"Did you talk to Aisha?" he asked, suddenly slightly afraid of the answer.

Varlerta bit her lip and nodded. Then she rested her forehead on his shoulder, obviously unwilling to talk.

"Did she say she was mistaken, then?" He insisted. To his concern, the witch in his arms shook her head, moving her face against his robes. 

"Nope – she was adamant that she had seen what she had seen, and was quite offended when I suggested she might have made a mistake."

Sirius sighed. Maybe he should not let the whole affair bother him so much – it was just that he hated mysteries, especially unexplainable mysteries with a slightly threatening undertone.

The night Varlerta had returned to Hogwarts, she had confronted Lupin half teasingly, but essentially seriously, asking him what he was thinking of, treating her friend in this fashion. The Muggle drummer of Varlerta's band, Aisha, had allegedly been in a slightly seedy wizard bar in New York, looking for Varlerta. Unfortunately, instead of Varlerta she had only found a couple of hired wands there, wizards seemingly bent on hurting or kidnapping Aisha. So far, so good – even so credible. What sounded incredible was that Aisha had seen Lupin there, his oldest and dearest friend Lupin, who had allegedly refused Aisha his help in a very rude and aloof manner. Aisha had been desperate, fearing for her life, but Lupin had only claimed that he did not know her.

In the end, nothing had happened: A strange person of uncertain gender called Lucullus, someone Varlerta called 'dangerous' (and that was really saying something), had decided to take Aisha under his/her protection, had walked the Muggle past the potential aggressors and had safely brought her to Varlerta's apartment. 

While being undoubtedly a cause for worry, the story would not have bothered Sirius half as much if not for Aisha's insistence that Lupin had been in the bar and that he had behaved in a way which could only be described as 'out of character.' Refusing to help someone in need did not sound like him at all. Of course, Sirius reasoned with himself, Aisha must either be mistaken, or she had to be lying: Lupin himself insisted that he had not been in a bar in New York in his whole life, that indeed he had never even left the British Isles, as werewolf registration laws put severe restrictions on his travelling options. Sirius would have liked to confirm Lupin's statement by pointing out that Lupin had been at Hogwarts with him on that particular night. A look at the calendar, however, had put a nagging hint of doubt into Sirius' heart: Lupin had been away the whole week to take his turn in the secret guard on Azkaban. If he had had one of Lupin's guard companions at hand, say, Mundungus Fletcher or Penthesilea Finnegan, Sirius would have liked to ask them if Lupin had indeed spent that particularly week with guard duty. Of course, such a wish was unworthy of a true friend. Sirius had never had any reason to distrust Lupin; checking up on him meant acknowledging that he didn't believe in Lupin's word anymore.

"I'm sure that Remus was in Britain," he finally replied, feeling helpless. "I trust him. Why should he be lying?"

Varlerta looked him in the eyes. He could tell by the way her mouth tensed up that she did not take these matters lightly, either. "I trust him, as well, because you do. I trust Aisha, too – there's certainly no reason why _she should be lying. She might be mistaken, but as she is neither stupid nor blind, it sounds unlikely to me – unless someone is messing about with Polyjuice Potion or the like. But why should someone do something like that? What's more, do it to fool a Muggle?"_

"Beats me," he said, nuzzling her hair. "I'm sure there is a reasonable explanation, though."

"So am I," she assured him softly, sounding as unconvinced as he.

"So have you caught a boggart for the third years yet?" he asked her to change the subject. 

Varlerta sighed and let herself fall onto the sofa, pulling him with her. Half-sitting and, well, half-not-quite-sitting, he listened to her relate a few school day anecdotes to him, closing with the remark that she would ask Lupin for help regarding the boggart, and that she would very much like to share her job with Lupin, as both of them had their distinctive qualifications. Sirius took her off-hand remarks as a sign that Varlerta still believed Lupin trustworthy. 

In turn, he told her about his and Lupin's recent progress at Spellsearching. Their greatest problem were the ice missiles: As they had not been able to preserve any of them for analysis, they did not know how they were made and which effect they might have. They could not simulate them, either, as they did not know how to cast the Ice Missile Curse – if it was a curse of its own, and not "a rather nasty update of the Icy Fingers Curse," as Varlerta had termed it.

Back in 1980, when the Beatles album they were listening to now had only been a decade old, when music still came in the shape of large black discs instead of small silvery ones, Lily, James and Sirius had already searched for a way to Counter Icy Fingers. Things had looked hopeless until the three of them had received unexpected help in their Spellsearching activities: Dumbledore's spy among the Death Eaters had been able to show them how the curse was cast. Sirius could not help wishing they had a spy now who could teach them more about the Ice Missile Curse. He felt like expressing this wish, but for some reason he couldn't quite name, he was unwilling to even mention Severus Snape in front of Varlerta. Instead he expressed his worries in more general terms.

Hogwarts had to expect another attack any day, any minute; it was Lupin's and Sirius' job to give the school a chance to defend itself. Before the summer holidays, their meticulous work had paid off, probably saving the lives of everyone in the castle: They had found a way to Counter Icy Fingers, and Harry, aided by one of his mysterious and spontaneous outbursts of increased magical power, had somehow managed to put the counter curse to use. Over the holidays, Lupin, Harry and Sirius had practiced and refined the counter curse; three nights a week, the trustworthy among the staff of Hogwarts met with Sirius and Lupin now to learn how to fight Icy Fingers. 

"We should put in an extra practice session tonight, so I can learn to use the counter curse as quickly as possible. I need to show it to the students soon," Varlerta interrupted Sirius' elaborations.

He smiled at her and ran his fingers through her black hair. "Once a teacher, always a teacher."

"I've got my responsibilities, just as you do," she replied soberly. "If I had known how great mine would become, I might have never dared to apply for this post. Now that I am here, I have to do the best I can to fulfil the expectations set in someone teaching the students of Hogwarts to defend themselves against the Dark Arts."   

He nodded, knowing that a school full of students able to counter Icy Fingers was the best defence they could possibly get, although he would have preferred to spend the evening in a more, er, romantic fashion than teaching a counter curse.

When the song _I want you / She's so heavy_ ended abruptly, he almost rose from the sofa to flip over the record, but was prevented by the next song starting automatically, as well as by Varlerta laughing into her sleeve. Ah, yes, CDs were not flipped over. He knew that, of course, because he had lived with the little devices for many months now, but the music of his past triggered old patterns of behaviour in him. Lily had owned Beatles records as long as he knew her, but had still started every single time the A-side of _Abbey Road _stopped right in the middle of a musical phrase. Sirius shook his head to ban his memories where they belonged – to the back of his mind.

"We might as well put in a practice session right now," he replied. "I think Harry is not at Quidditch practice tonight, so maybe we can get him to join us – Remus, too, if he isn't asleep yet."

"As long as Harry keeps his hazardous beast out of my way," Varlerta said with a grimace.

Now it was Sirius' turn to laugh at her. "Superstitious, Professor?" he teased her as he offered her a hand up. Varlerta rose with a moan.

"At the end of a long day of teaching, sometimes all I really want is my bed," she mumbled and pointed her wand at her stereo to turn it off in the middle of _Here Comes the Sun. Swallowing his reply that going to bed did not sound like such a bad idea to him, Sirius transformed into a dog and followed her out of the building._

As he had expected, they found Harry near Hagrid's hut, grooming the Thestral. Harry's pet – if the Thestral was Harry's pet and not the other way around – flipped his long, silky black tail and looked like he could bring nothing but good luck and happiness. Hermione and Ron, who had obviously come with Harry, regarded the magical beast from a respectful distance, as if they were afraid of catching a disease. Hagrid however stood at Harry's side, admiring the beauty of the winged horse, probably for the two hundred and sixty-eighth time.

"'e's a classy little pony, as purty as one of 'is likes can be," the half-giant murmured dreamily. "Never seen'un so fine, and lemme tell you, I've spotted a few of'em now an' then."

 The Thestral nuzzled Hagrid's large, outstretched hands, perhaps appreciating the compliment. Harry, Ron and Hermione greeted Varlerta politely; then Harry turned to the dog. "Snuffles, what's up?" he said in a manner which made Sirius feel welcome. The dog sat down by Harry's side, wagging his tail, but feeling like a hypocrite. It dawned on him that he should better tell Harry about him and Varlerta before the boy found out from somebody else. During the holidays, he had resisted the temptation to moon openly over Varlerta's few letters, and Remus had been too tactful to mention her. Now however, it was high time to tell Harry that the only parent he had ever known had hooked up with one of Harry's teachers. Sirius decided to break the news gently, at a more appropriate time.

"We wanted to ask you if you could possibly find the time for half an hour of countering practice, Harry," Varlerta said politely. 

Harry shot Hermione and Ron a glance; he had probably planned spending his Quidditch-free evening with his friends. After a tiny pause, possibly needed to bite back a less polite reply, he answered her: "Sure, any time." He rubbed the Thestral's nose affectionately as a gesture of parting and turned to Ron and Hermione. "Care to come along?" he asked them without enquiring whether Varlerta would mind. However, nobody objected, so the teacher, the three students and the large, black dog started towards the castle, leaving the ever-present Thestral with Hagrid, who, Sirius hoped, was immune to bad luck.

   Lupin had already retired to his bedroom, probably making up the sleep he had lost in the last few days he had spent as a werewolf. They had to make do without him, then. Before the holidays, Sirius would have refused simulating Icy Fingers in the presence of students without having Remus around, but he felt different about it now. At first, Harry had only helped out, his interest triggered by his own surprising success at Countering the curse. Soon, Sirius had found out that he enjoyed working with Harry very much. The boy wasn't overeager or pushy, but if he accepted a task, he worked on it with quiet persistence and concentration. Every once in a while, he had a brilliant idea; the rest of the time, he cooperated without arrogance or even reluctance to take advice from others. 

Many times during the holidays, Sirius, Harry and sometimes Remus had worked late into the night, bent on improving their counter curse. On a few occasions, Sirius had almost committed the blunder of calling the boy James. The way Harry reminded him of his old friend, not only in his looks, but also in his way of working, of talking, of soberly focussing on the task at hand was nothing short of uncanny. Sirius and James had worked into the night innumerable times, discussing how to deliver the magical community from the peril of Voldemort's marrow-freezing curse. Now Sirius had long conversations about the same topic with Harry, whose resemblance to the adult James increased as he grew older. A few times, in the small hours of the morning, when Sirius had looked over his desk at a bleary-eyed Harry, it was as if time had not passed at all. Of course, that was not true; it was rather that Harry was starting to fill his father's shoes.

After Sirius had transformed back into a wizard, he and Harry conjured up the Atmoglisa Magica to practice curse Countering in an atmosphere of relative safety. Then Sirius reminded Varlerta, Ron and Hermione of the most important aspects of Countering, knowing that neither of them would mind hearing a piece of advice once too often instead of once too rarely. He corrected Ron's wand movement, aware that Hermione and Varlerta would listen closely and benefit from his instructions as well. 

As she had been trained by him before, Varlerta managed to Counter a weakened simulation version of Icy Fingers; Ron and Hermione had picked up a thing or two from Harry, as well. Their skills would not suffice to fend off an attack yet, but it was certainly a beginning; Ron and especially Hermione were probably way ahead of their year mates' Countering skills already, and Varlerta would be able to start teaching the curse to students soon, when she had managed it sufficiently herself. In less than an hour, all three countering trainees had made some noticeable progress, improving the school's chances of surviving another attack a bit further. Finally, Sirius and Varlerta both claimed that they had done enough for that night. The five of them sat down on the mismatched chairs in the Spellsearchers' Lab, wiping cold sweat off their foreheads.

"Both of you make quite good teachers, Harry and Sirius, by the way," Varlerta commented after a few minutes of exhausted silence. "I will do my best to pass all I learned tonight on to my students, but I wish they could learn to counter the curse from you." She gave Sirius a very special smile which made him feel very important and talented. "I will see how this can be brought about. You should be a teacher for Countering, Sirius, and Harry should be your assistant, just like Ginny and Neville are mine. After all, the safety of Hogwarts may depend on it," she added.

Sirius suppressed a sigh which juddered deep in his breast. "I'm afraid it's impossible," he said as calmly and patiently as he could. "After all, I am still wanted by the Dementors, and my presence at this school must not be known by anyone except the members of Dumbledore's secret order. Not even Remus is supposed to be seen here. If I taught at this school, the students would undoubtedly recognize me and tell their parents that I am here. Fudge would have no choice than to oppose Dumbledore, maybe even to attack Hogwarts if Dumbledore refuses to surrender me to the Dementors." 

"Well, you are innocent, and there has to be a way to prove this," Varlerta said, adopting the impatience in his voice. "Let's all give this task another thought. It is only unachievable if we give up on it."

Sirius knew that he should take her wish to have him cleared as a sign of affection, but could not help feeling an irrational anger rise in him. Merlin's beard, that witch had some nerve! He had spent the last three years wondering how he could be officially cleared, and Dumbledore had certainly pondered this question in detail as well. The idea that his innocence could finally be proven because _Professor_ Varlerta suddenly took an interest was a bit preposterous, to say the least.

"It would certainly be great if my name could be cleared, but I am afraid this might be a bit difficult," he managed to say in a voice that was only slightly chilly. It took him quite a bit of self-control not to mention a rat called Wormtail, not to mention the fact that Varlerta herself had let Wormtail escape during the last school year. Looking up at her face, he saw her blush and cast her eyes on the floor. He was sure that although he had not actually said that he could not be cleared because she had made a wrong decision, she must have heard his thoughts or read them in his eyes.

"I'm sure there is a way," she murmured darkly and with much less vivacity than before. "I'm going to look for this way, believe me."


	6. Hermione

6 – Hermione 

Hermione had been expecting Penthesilea's owl for a few days, but the moment she untied the letter from the leg of the grey screech-owl, she felt fear rising up in her stomach. What had she done, what had she said? For a moment, she fervently wished she could turn back time, go back to being the law-abiding top student. She let herself fall onto her four-poster bed and unfolded the note.

"Large chestnut tree east of the Astronomy Tower – touch the trunk and say 'witch-doctor' – tonight, 10 P.M. – memorise this and burn it afterwards. P."

Hermione smoothed out the piece of parchment and re-read its short message. Ten o'clock at night, a truly brilliant suggestion! She whispered noiselessly: "Chestnut tree, witch-doctor, ten o'clock" to commit the information to her memory, then let the parchment dissolve into a small green flame.

When she had been a little girl, telling apart right and wrong had been fairly easy. Her parents and her teachers seemed to possess infinite – or at least superior – wisdom, so she took care always to follow their instructions and suggestions. She had learned that with a little effort, she could excel at school and earn her teachers' and parents' praise. Even though occasionally, this could only be achieved at the price of her fellow students' esteem, she never strayed far from that path, as it was obvious that her teachers knew so much more than the jeering crowd of her envious classmates.

 When she had learned that she was a witch, the firm ground beneath her feet had been shaken for the first time: Many ideas she had learned and accepted as the truth became null and void, for example her firm belief that such things as magic, fairies and the Easter bunny were illusions created to keep the simple-minded entertained. Then one day, a letter had appeared out of nowhere, demanding that Hermione should leave her old life behind and become someone else, someone who believed and lived in a fairy-tale. Every illusion had come true, well, maybe almost every illusion. For the briefest second, Hermione grinned to herself as she imagined Molly Weasley with long, fluffy ears.

Hermione had coped well and used the well-known strategies of her earlier school days to adapt to the world of magic: Work hard, trust in your teachers because they know better than you, and when in doubt, go to the library. These old strategies had paid off in her new life, as well: Hermione had learned a lot, she had improved her skills, and most importantly, she had  succeeded. Teachers' praise never strayed far from Hermione. – Of course, this wasn't all there had been to her first few years at Hogwarts, because there had been Harry and Ron.

Harry and Ron worked hard only if they could not help it, or if they truly took an interest in something – and that something did not usually coincide with their school subjects. Harry and Ron did not believe that their teachers knew better than them; if in doubt, they roamed the school at night, took matters into their own hands, and broke rules by the dozen. The two of them had shown Hermione what bravery was; they had shown her what friendship was. If she imagined herself as the person she would be if they had not become her friends – say, if after the mountain troll affair they had not given her these no-longer-hostile looks, encouraging her to sit down next to them during meals and classes – if she imagined that version of herself, she realised she would probably not like her very much. This friendless version of Hermione, she guessed, would still find rule-breaking very difficult, even if she knew the rules were wrong. As it was, she was able to decide, to choose her path according to the things her conscience demanded. Hermione blew away a speck of green ashes, building up determination. She would do what she deemed right, even if it was against wizard law; a thing as trivial as a school curfew would not keep her from it. She rose, cast a pitying glance at Lavender-the-parasite, who was enjoying an afternoon nap, and went down to the common room to meet Ron and Harry. 

The two of them were trying to compose magic logs from scratch for Monday's Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson – Professor Varlerta had told them they would need last year's logs for a self-assessment test. Of course, logs made up like those of Ron and Harry would not tell their authors much about the development of their magical abilities, Hermione mused. She was very much looking forward to evaluating her own magic log, however, which comprised three tomes filled with her narrow handwriting. But, of course, before Monday could come, there was that meeting tonight.

Getting there unnoticed would be difficult, of course. How she wished she could ask Harry for his Cloak! Unfortunately, Harry didn't have it at the moment; he had lent it to Sirius last autumn, because for the escaped convict, remaining undiscovered was a matter of life and death. Even if the Cloak had been in Harry's hands, however, she would not have asked him: Undoubtedly, he would have inquired for what she needed it tonight. Hermione could not give him any explanation, however; her plans were a secret.

Sitting down next to the two of them and hiding her face behind a book she needed for her History of Magic assignment, she permitted the significance of this thought to fill her mind: She was hiding things from her best friends! But then again, she did not have much choice – she wasn't sure, couldn't be sure from experience, that they would understand, and there was no way she could take the risk.

Still trying to think of a way to get to the meeting unnoticed, even to get out of the castle at night, Hermione let the words on the pages in front of her drift out of focus. All doors of the castle were secured by magic at night; even if she managed to break a door spell, certainly a magical alarm would go off right next to Dumbledore's pillow. The teachers opened the doors with a password, which, of course, was kept secret from the students.

Late at night.... There were two students who returned to Gryffindor tower late at night every once in a while – Ginny and Neville. Their audio magic mentor, Professor Varlerta, had a habit of taking them to stone circles to experiment with audio magic during the nights of the full moon. After she had been attacked at the circle they had been using, she had found a different one for her small research group, Ginny had told Hermione; their first visit to the place last week had been particularly exhausting. So exhausting, in fact, Ginny had told her in a slightly mischievous voice, that Varlerta had fallen asleep behind the steering wheel on the way home. Thanks goodness, her flying Ford Anglia was Ensouled and found the way to the castle without any steering. It had dropped them off in front of the castle and then taken the snoozing teacher away, Ginny had said. If this information was correct, Hermione concluded, it could mean only one thing: Ginny and Neville had entered the castle without Varlerta's help; therefore, they had to be familiar with the front door spell.

Over the edge of her book, Hermione's eyes scanned the common room; her mind was racing. This particular piece of information might not be had just for the asking: Most likely, Varlerta's apprentices had been warned not to impart it to any student. Consequently, Hermione would have to make one of them tell her by some sort of trick; she had to outsmart them, to find the weakest link. Her eyes came to a rest: Neville – of the two of them, he would be far easier to persuade. The weakest link within Neville was his clumsiness, his lack of academic success, Hermione decided, but then she corrected herself: If she wasn't mistaken, presently Neville's weakest spot was Ginny, or maybe Ginny and her band.

She went over to his table and sat down by his side. "Memory charm regulations," she stated rather than asked, because on his piece of parchment she could see his work. 

Neville sighed. "This is so complicated! I don't know how the magical barristers remember it all! All these different regulations for Muggles, and for wizards, and...." He gave her one of his typical Neville-is-helpless looks. Hermione was tempted to reply that the regulations were fairly easy – as far as she had read, altering the memory of a Muggle was usually permitted, unless there was no cause for the spell whatsoever, while altering the memory of a wizard was usually forbidden. However, she knew that Neville did not need her zeal, but rather something that would help him remember. 

"I summarised this from three library books," she said, taking her own notes out of the book she was holding, where they had served as a bookmark. On a piece of parchment, she had drawn up an easy-to-read table where all the relevant regulations were listed. "Do you want to copy? It becomes much more clear this way, I think."

Neville's eyes scanned the table, then they rounded. "This is fantastic, Hermione," he breathed, awe in his voice. "I wish _you_ would write our schoolbooks! Why don't they use tables like that in the books, so people like me can easily remember?" 

Hermione had sometimes wondered about this herself; when Neville gave her a questioning look, she replied with an encouraging nod – sure, he could copy her notes, no problem. Neville smiled gratefully, but, she guessed, not gratefully enough yet to do something he had most likely been specifically forbidden to do. 

Putting aside the awful feeling that befell her because she was planning to consciously manipulate someone as gullible as Neville, Hermione played another trump card. "So how are things going with you and the band?"

Neville's face fell, giving Hermione's conscience another shove downwards. Ginny had told her all about it: She, Rhonda and Julian Hengert had, so far, met a few times in the unused classroom, practicing to play a few cover songs as well as they could, considering their limited experience. Most of them had been suggested by Julian, the guitar player, who had already gilded their endeavour with fame by doing something unheard of in Hogwarts: He had refused the office of the Ravenclaw Quidditch captain, explaining that the highly-desired position would make too many demands on his time – only as a regular team member he would still be able to play in Hogwarts' newly-formed rock band. Ginny had related all this to Hermione with pride in her voice; her self-esteem seemed to have grown by a hand span. She had also explained to the elder girl why she had not asked Neville to join the band, so Hermione knew what his reply would be.

"She doesn't want me," Neville said with infinite sadness in his voice. "She said they are a rock band, not a jazz band or folk band or whatever, and that Jethro Tull is ancient history. They don't want a flute player in their band."

Jethro Tull? For once, Hermione did not have the faintest idea who Neville was talking about, which was a rare and rather strange experience; however, she knew how to interpret his complaint within its context.

"They are still looking for a singer, though, aren't they? We all know that you've got a nice voice."

Neville kept his eyes firmly on Hermione's notes. "It's _too nice, apparently. Ginny said they are looking for a __rock singer, and that I'm not a rock singer," he mumbled._

"Hm, maybe you should prove her wrong? Show her what you can do?" Watching herself systematically needling Neville so that he would be indebted to her even more was disgusting in a way. Deceit and pretence – was that the way things were going to be in the future? Hermione banned such nagging inner voices from her mind, focussing on her strategy. When Neville finally whispered, "I don't dare to," she put a hand on his sleeve.

"You really should give it a try, you know," she told him. "I'm sure you are exactly what they are looking for – they just haven't listened to you properly yet. It would be _so_ nice for Gryffindor if you could sing with them. Everybody would be proud of you. You know what? Maybe if you know their songs ahead of time, if you get a chance to practice them, you can make a head start." 

"I'm too embarrassed to ask her again about singing with them, and I don't dare ask about the songs," Neville confessed in a whisper, his face flushed with shame. Hermione's heart filled with sympathy for him. She could almost convince herself that she was doing this for his sake at least as much as for the sake of her own plans.

"I'll ask her what they are playing, then," she said, "and I'll tell you. Maybe Professor Varlerta can help you a little, too. You've _got_ to get your courage up and try out singing with them! I'll talk to Ginny, too, because I'm sure that in her heart, she would really like you to sing with the band. I'm sure that when I talk to her, she'll agree."

Neville gave her another of those looks which clearly said that Hermione was too good to be true. "You'd do that for me? Really?"

Hermione nodded. "No problem," she said. "I like to help if I can."

"But you always help me," Neville said unhappily. "You help me with my schoolwork, you saved my life at least a hundred times in Potions during my first four years, and now you are helping me again. Is there never anything I can do to help you, too?"

"Don't worry about it, Neville," Hermione said with a smile, forcing herself to be patient.

"Nothing? Come on, Hermione, there's _got_ to be something I can do for you, too. Please, tell me, I would feel so much better."

Hermione leant back in her armchair and pretended to think for a while. "You know what? There actually is something," she finally said. Neville beamed at her.

"Could you show me how to open the castle's entrance at night?"

Neville hesitated for the briefest second; Hermione's heart beat in her chest. Would he ask for her reasons?

"No problem, it's really easy if you know the password," Neville replied, giving Hermione a look filled to the brim with trust.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The grounds were dark and chilly; a fine, drizzly rain was falling. The smell of wet grass hung heavily in the air, insisting that in spite of the unfriendly weather, summer wasn't entirely over yet. Hermione took care to keep the light of her wand dim, and to shield it with her hand in places where no trees obstructed the view from the castle. Her hands clenched her wand tightly; she was nervous, maybe even afraid. As far as she knew, teachers were patrolling the grounds regularly at night; she could not be caught, or seen, or she might very well be expelled. Scratch that, they were not likely to react so drastically, she told herself as she walked down the path that led around the castle in a wide arch – but she certainly would be punished.

Keeping in the shade of the extensive shrubbery, large bushes heavy with inedible berries, she walked towards the chestnut tree east of the Astronomy Tower with utmost care. Another twenty steps or so would do, she thought to calm herself, when something touched her lightly on the shoulder.

Hermione wheeled around, shaky with a sudden outpour of adrenaline, but at least she managed not to scream out in terror. When she found herself facing the large, soft-mouthed head of the Thestral, almost invisible in the nightly darkness, she almost sobbed with relief. Curse that beast – he had a knack of appearing where he was least wanted, she thought, but could not resist running a hand over his nose. The winged stallion neighed gently. At first, he had been unwilling to let anyone touch him except for Harry and, of course, Hagrid, but recently he had transferred his unbidden affection on Harry's two best friends. Neither Ron nor Hermione were entirely comfortable with this; the belief that the Thestral was unlucky hung over him like a black shadow. However, Hermione thought as she patted his neck, the beautiful, friendly beast had something about him which made him irresistible – neither superstition nor reason could change that.

"Go back to Hagrid – I've got to go," Hermione whispered. The Thestral affectionately breathed in her ear; then he turned aside and strode off as if he had understood. Hermione shook her head to clear it and walked the last few steps towards the tree Penthesilea had described. "Witch-doctor," she whispered as she touched the tree's trunk. Left of the tree, a trap door appeared and opened; inside the dimly lit passage, a ladder could be seen. Apprehensively, Hermione tested the ladder with one foot, then put the other one on the step beneath it. This had to be the path into the camp. Very carefully, she descended the ladder. Just as her feet touched the ground of the secret passage, the trapdoor above her closed with a soft _thump!_

Hermione trotted along the roughly carved passage for a few minutes, wondering where exactly it would lead her. Out of curiosity, she had taken a cursory look at a library book about hidden places during a spare hour two days ago. To hide a place from Muggles, you could protect it with Muggle-repellent charms, which strongly dissuaded Muggles from taking a closer look. To hide a place from your fellow witches and wizards was much more difficult. Making it unplottable was a method to make a place hard to find over a long period of time. Durmstrang, Hermione knew, was unplottable, but Hogwarts wasn't – otherwise, Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs could not have drawn up Harry's highly cherished Marauder's map. Every witch and wizard in Britain knew where Hogwarts lay; hiding a refugee camp in Hogwarts was no simple task as far as she knew.

The library book, Hermione remembered as she ascended a few steps hewn into the soil, had listed another method of hiding a place; it sounded likely that it had been the one used in this case: To hide something large, a building or even something the size of a village, you could perform a highly complicated Parallelus charm which worked much like a mixture of a strong Muggle-repellent and a Fidelius charm: If you were not admitted from the inside and did not know the password to get through one or several hidden barriers, you saw the area the way it had looked before the building had been erected. 

Students of Hogwarts would see their grounds as they knew them, completely devoid of a League refugee camp. They would look at the area it covered from afar and believe it unchanged, but they would feel no inclination to go there; most likely, they would just turn around and find something else to do. If some students forced themselves to stray into this particular area, maybe consciously fighting the manipulation of the Parallelus charm, they would start feeling queasy and dizzy until they returned to the castle, demanding the help of Madam Pomfrey. – Hermione had arrived at another ladder which lead upwards to another wooden trapdoor. She climbed up and knocked, knowing that she was passing the hidden barrier: If she was admitted, she would see the Hogwarts grounds as they really were at the moment, not an illusion created by a Parallelus charm.

The trapdoor above her head opened; in the light of a good-sized campfire, Hermione saw Penthesilea Finnegan, who offered her a hand to pull her up onto the ground.

"Hermione, I'm so glad to see you." Once Hermione stood safely on the moist grass, Penthesilea greeted her with a warm smile. "Did you find the place alright?"

Somehow the question struck Hermione as sounding awfully trivial, just as if Penthesilea had given her directions to find a house in a Muggle suburb, not instructions to walk through an underground passage into a magically hidden refugee camp at ten o'clock at night, breaking a handful of school rules on the way. Nevertheless, she replied pleasantly: "Thank you, I found my way without a problem."

Hermione looked around. She was surrounded by a small, village-like arrangement of two-storey wooden huts – lodgings that looked solid, but by no means comfortable. Undersized windows were lit in most of them, throwing a dreary light on the slightly muddy alleys, the empty clotheslines and miniature flower and vegetable beds. These people were here for a long stay, she realised – there was no telling when they would no longer be in danger.

Penthesilea led her through one of the narrow alleys without any comment referring to the bleakness of the camp. Hermione reminded herself that it had nothing of the squalor of the Muggle refugee camps she had seen on her parents' TV; add broad and sunny daylight and subtract the drizzly rain, and the place might almost look like a toy village, she tried to cheer herself up. However, she had to concede as she almost stumbled over an abandoned Quaffle, it was no place where she would have liked to raise her children.

"I am glad I could win your interest for our endeavour," Penthesilea said, wiping a hand across her moist face. "You would be most welcome among us. Of course, being underage, you cannot become a full member yet – our statute says that only adult witches and wizards can do that. However, we accept younger people as membership candidates, who are entitled to be present at general meetings, and to take part in any activity which is not considered too dangerous for them." She gave Hermione a questioning look, almost as if she expected her to object, but when the girl merely nodded, she continued:

"I asked a couple of members to meet us at our headquarters here. It is not a general meeting, as you are not sworn to secrecy yet; we could not risk telling you anything that is not to be known outside the League. However, please be aware that we welcome you to this place in good faith, but that we do hope that even if you decide against becoming a member of the League, we expect you to keep silent about everything you see and hear in this camp."

Hermione nodded again, this time masking a trace of annoyance with a friendly face. Being told so blandly that she was not to be trusted unless she swore a formal oath did not go down well with her. Moreover, to be told to keep silent about the things she heard and saw in the League camp seemed pointless to her in view of the fact that she had broken so many school rules just by coming here – who should she tell any secrets, if coming here was a secret in itself?  

Penthesilea led the way into a larger hut which almost deserved the term 'house.' Inside, a witch and two wizards sat on mismatched armchairs around a low table. The warmth of a small cast-iron stove and the teakettle heating up on top of it gave the dimly lit room a welcoming touch. After a short exchange of greetings, Penthesilea and Hermione took off their damp cloaks and hung them on hooks nailed to the walls; then they sat down at the table, too.

Penthesilea introduced the three other League members. Florean Fortescue was well-known to Hermione, of course. Her face must have betrayed her surprise of finding that the ice-cream salesman of Diagon Alley 'was League,' as people termed it, because the wizard winked at her mischievously. The kind-looking witch in her mid-thirties was introduced to her as Lucy Callahan, while the name of the tall, young, dark-skinned wizard was Ambrose Curtis. Hermione shook their hands in greeting.

"Hermione Granger, you have come here because you think of becoming a member of the League for Magic and Non-magic Cooperation. Tonight, we will get to know each other better; you can ask us questions, and we would like to know more about you. The common proceedings in such a case is that you get two weeks' time to come to a decision concerning your membership, and that we will investigate you during the same period of time to make sure that there are no objections to your wish of becoming one of us."

The earnestness in Florean's talk about objections, about investigating her, reminded her that this was no game, no place for a childish decision to be reversed whenever it pleased her. The League, Penthesilea had told her, were a radical organisation; some of their members fought for their beliefs with violent means. Hermione had no intention of blowing up a wizard mansion, not the Malfoys', not anyone's, but her long talk with Penthesilea on Percy's wedding had convinced her that she believed in many of the things the League seemed to be fighting for. She nodded to indicate that she was listening, and that she agreed with the things Florean had said so far.

"The League promotes Magic and Non-magic Cooperation. We believe that the problems of this world should be solved by magic and non-magic people together, that we should cooperate with the Muggles as well as we can to fight the evils of this world. We believe that there must be a reason why there are witches and wizards on this planet, magical people who are able to break the natural laws which are binding for Muggles – and we believe that we have magical powers not to secure ourselves the most comfortable lives available, but to do our part in making this world a better and fairer place." Florean accepted a cup of tea from Ambrose and thanked him with a short nod; Lucy put a cup in Hermione's hands. The warmth of the beverage was reassuring.

"Innumerable years ago, there was an unwritten contract between Muggles and magical people, the Ancient Order: The Muggles clothed, fed and sheltered us; we healed their sick, provided the rain for their crops and the entertainment for their holidays," Florean said after a careful sip of his scalding tea. "For many centuries, we lived in peace with each other, and I believe we lived well, because we could benefit from each other's skills. After some time, however, many witches and wizards decided to enslave the Muggles; they wanted to be clothed, fed, and sheltered without fulfilling their side of the deal. Since then, there is a hidden war between magical and non-magical people. Muggles tried to get by without our help and invented technology – technology which today creates innumerable problems on the planet which we share with the Muggles, whether we like it or not. To rid themselves of their magical Feudal lords, Muggles fought innumerable wars, mostly ending up harming each other. Today, the world is full of Muggle wars, and the suffering is immense. Even we witches and wizards fight amongst ourselves: Our current struggle with You-Know-Who is only one of many wars among wizards, wars fought to accumulate power, to rule over others and to exploit them for selfish reasons.

"As League members, we look around in the world, and we do not like what we see. We believe that many kinds of injustice and violence could be eased if Muggles and magical people worked together again, both sides renouncing all claims of power over the other. The old contract, the Ancient Order, should be re-established; together, we may succeed where divided we have failed for centuries. This may sound like an illusion, like a dream. So be it, then – we set this dream against the nightmare of exploitation and violence which rules both sides, rules the lives of many Muggles and presently rules all of our lives, too." Florean gestured to indicate that the refugee camp they were in was connected to the violence he was talking about. While he drank some more tea, maybe wetting his throat after this long speech, Hermione wished fervently she could have had him for a History of Magic teacher instead of being bored into a stupor by Professor Binns for so many years. She had once come across a book written by him, and she knew that he was an expert on early magical history.

Toying with his teaspoon, Florean continued: "As League members, we believe in equal rights: Laws which work to Muggles' disadvantage, which grant witches and wizards power over Muggles, are opposed by the League. We disapprove of the excessive use of memory charms; one day, we hope, Muggles will come to trust us again, so that our magical powers will no longer need to be a secret. Magical and non-magical people should live side by side again one day, intermarrying without any regulating laws. We strongly oppose any discrimination against witches and wizards of Muggle parentage, and, indeed, any regulation which is based on descendance. Oh, yes, and we oppose You-Know-Who in any way we can, of course."

Hermione nodded; this was the reason why she was here. She wasn't entirely sure about the League – some of the things she had heard about them were not to her liking. However, even if she thought that people calling the League a bunch of dreamers might have a point, Florean's speech had moved something within her. She doubted that all the problems of the world could be solved just by a cooperation between Muggles and magical people (she liked it that he used that term, instead of just saying 'wizards' all the time), but a relationship built on trust and cooperation might certainly help in many respects. Could witches and wizards maybe help to fight pollution, or to alleviate the injustice in many poor countries – not to mention the violence?

"If you decide to join the League, you have to be aware that it is a highly heterogeneous organisation," Penthesilea said. "While we all agree on the things Florean has talked about, many of us disagree about the means used to reach our aims. Some League members oppose all violence under any circumstances; some fight for their beliefs with more drastic means than sit-ins. No League member is ever obliged to join in any activity he or she does not believe to be right; however, it is against the League statutes to hinder others. League members are sworn to secrecy; never may they betray an activity of their fellow members to the Muggle or wizard authorities, or, of course, to You-Know-Who and his followers."

Hermione frowned. "What do I do if a League member is planning an activity I consider simply wrong? Do I just stand back and let them go ahead with it?"

"If you believe your fellow League members are doing something wrong, you can always talk to your local or even national head member," Penthesilea replied. "The League is semi-hierarchical, but democratic in structure: Every two years, all members vote for head members; all head members vote for the President of the League. The heads coordinate activities, but they also insure that all action taken agrees with the League statutes. These statutes demand, for example, that no innocent people, be they magical or non-magical, are harmed by any kind of League activity. If you believe a League member plans something that does not fulfil this condition, you are encouraged to discuss this with your head member, who is authorised to forbid this kind of action."

"The statues of the League command all members to comply with such an 'activity ban,' and to keep the head members informed of all their plans." Florean continued. "Other than that, the heads do not have any authority over the other members, though they may ask or encourage members to participate in plans which find their approval. In very rare cases, they order for a member to be punished if he or she has gravely betrayed the League. However, such decisions are always confirmed by a group of League members; even in a case of obvious treachery, we would never put the power to punish into the hands of one person alone."

Hermione shuddered inwardly, thinking of Prometheus Quibster. The Muggle Studies teacher had betrayed Dumbledore's order as well as the League, but he had meant well. If not for his treachery, the refugee camp might not have been permitted on the Hogwarts grounds. Not for the first time, she wondered what had become of Quibster, if he had indeed been punished by the President of the League, as Penthesilea had announced. She felt tempted to ask about him, but thought better of it: Surely, this was not the time and place for such a question.

"Mummy, I need to wee-wee!" All heads turned to the door leading – probably – to an adjoining room; Ambrose Curtis chuckled, and Florean smiled. The speaker was a curly-haired little girl of about four or five; her plaintive voice had a sense of urgency. 

Lucy Callahan raised her eyes heavenwards. "She's too scared to go to the outhouse when it's dark," she whispered to the people at the table. With a sigh, she rose to accompany her daughter outside. Once again, Hermione thought that she would not like to raise her children in such a camp, but then she suddenly remembered all the League members who had been killed since the raise of Voldemort. Nine children had been killed with their parents, Quibster had told Dumbledore accusingly before the holidays; more might have been killed in the meantime. They had died because their parents opposed Voldemort. Those children who had made it safely to the refugee camp did not live in comfort, but at least they were alive.

While Lucy Callahan was gone, Florean continued to tell Hermione about her potential League membership: "As you are underage, you cannot become a full member yet. We do not allow underage witches and wizards to participate in dangerous and illegal activities, and for safety reasons, we cannot admit them at certain meetings. However, please be aware that even as an underage membership candidate, you are required to swear loyalty to the League, to obey its basic statutes, and to keep all you hear in the meetings absolutely secret."

Hermione nodded; this made sense. Coming here to apply for League membership was nothing she had done on the spur of the moment. Since Percy's wedding, she had thought about it every day. She had not made her decision lightly, and she would not behave childishly as a League member even if she was underage. "I am prepared to swear loyalty, and to behave accordingly," she said with a dry mouth just as Lucy returned with her daughter. The witch sent the child away to the other room with an affectionate pat on the back and sat down at the table very quietly, obviously embarrassed that she was interrupting at an important moment.

"Do not rush into anything," Penthesilea said kindly. "As I said, both you and we will have two weeks to think things over. We will investigate you, as we investigate everybody who applies for membership, but we also want to hear as much as possible from your own mouth. Don't hesitate to tell us things I know – Florean, Lucy and Ambrose probably won't know them. Who are you, and why do you wish to become a League member?"

"I am a sixth year student at Hogwarts," Hermione began, unsure what they wanted to hear about her. "My parents are Muggles. I lived with them until I started here at school, and I never knew that I was a witch, or indeed that magic was real. I know both worlds, and I love them both. When I grow up, when I get my NEWTs, I don't know exactly in which world I want to live, but I cannot imagine ever abandoning either of them completely." She hesitated, wondering whether to disclose any personal feelings to them, but Penthesilea nodded encouragingly, and Ambrose gave her a warm smile.

"I hate any kind of injustice," she said firmly. "I hate it when it happens to me, when they call me Mudblood –" she saw Ambrose flinch and Florean scowl, "and I hate it when injustice happens to others. What I wish for most is a world where everybody – not only Muggles and witches and wizards, but also house-elves and giants and hippogriffs – where _everybody_ has equal rights, and can live according to his or her nature and needs. I want all people and creatures to live in peace, to live as neighbours. I want to be able to ask my school friends to tea at my parents' house, and not to have to think twice about it. I want to have a job that is useful to Muggles _and to magical people. I do not generally approve of violence, but I have come to the conviction that the aim of the League is not to blow up others irresponsibly, but to fight against injustice in every sensible way. This is why the aims of the League are my aims as well. – Oh yes, and I want to fight Lord Voldemort." She saw the younger two League members flinch at her use of the name, but did not correct herself. Straightening her back, she continued:_

"Together with my friends, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, I have been fighting Lord Voldemort since my first year at Hogwarts, simply because where Harry is, there is always the need to fight Voldemort. So far, all I have done is help Harry wherever it was necessary. I want to do more – I believe I _can do more, and I want to do it on my own account from now on. However, on my own I am weak and useless. As a member of the League, I believe that I can make use of all the things I have learned in the last five years."_


	7. Draco

7 – Draco 

_"Mr. Lupin, my curse teacher."_ The remark had been bothering Draco the whole morning. It had kept him from concentrating during Advanced Transfiguration, during Combat Magic, and now, during Quidditch practice held on the large, unusually sunny Durmstrang pitch, the words were still obstructing Draco's view onto the real world. _"Mr. Lupin, my curse teacher."_ It had to be a mistake, but then again, Chad, the American, did not seem like a person who would get the names of his teachers wrong. Of course, Draco reasoned with himself, maybe it was just a coincidence – for all he knew, North America could be flooded with Lupins. The large country across the ocean might very well contain dynasties over dynasties of wizards bearing the name Lupin, what's more, wizards born with an incomprehensible urge to become teachers.

"Hey, Malfoy, are you daydreaming or what? Can't believe I've seen the Snitch before you did!" Rechter, the captain of the Inostranit Quidditch team, knew how to keep his people under his thumb. He seemed to have eyes everywhere, Draco thought as he obediently brought himself into position – eyes on the back of his head, eyes on top of his head – Draco had been about thirty feet higher than Rechter; probably, Draco thought wryly, Rechter even had eyes on his arse. 

"We'll never beat the Gospods with a Seeker that won't concentrate on what he's doing!" Rechter, repeating his seventh year at Durmstrang, was tall and strong; his tanned, angular face was framed by short-cropped blond hair. On his Kampfflieger broomstick, he looked imposing indeed. Draco did not like him. For one thing, if Rechter had been smart enough to get his degree and leave Durmstrang last year, Draco might have inherited his post as the team captain. For another, Draco detested the way Rechter spat while talking, and the German accent of the Inostranit Quidditch captain was nothing short of an insult to Draco's ears. 

"Crabbe, Goyle, get your bats ready, and try to stay on your brooms today."  Rechter was obviously in a foul mood; however, Draco could not very well blame him for yelling at Crabbe and Goyle. By all rights, the two of them should not have made the house team due to their lack of the adequate skills; however, there weren't many students who could have taken their places. Inostranit was a small house, newly re-awakened last year by the change of politics in the wizarding world. All of them were transfer students, most of them Slytherins from Hogwarts, some coming from other countries: Rechter, for example, had left the Brockenschule in the German Harz, because the school's open opposition to Voldemort's supporters did not agree with his parents. In contrast to the other four houses of Durmstrang, consisting mostly of Eastern European students who were mainly taught in Russian, the Inostranits were educated mainly in English. They did not mix well with the other four houses. Many of the Eastern European students of Durmstrang detested the newcomers; competition was high. Beating Durmstrang's most prestigious house, the Gospods, in Quidditch was a top priority; in so far Draco had to agree with Rechter.

Draco gave his Lightspeed 4500b the mental spurs. The acceleration had not lost its magic for him yet; even though he had owned the racing broom, presently the most expensive on the market, since last spring, he was still amazed by its special features. It had been a gift from his father, of course, who wished that his son should do well in the new school. Dodging the bats of the immensely stupid beaters, Crabbe and Goyle, who were just as likely to hit him instead of a Bludger, Draco sped after the practice Snitch. It was a handy little thing, charmed to come at the blow of a special whistle when practice was over, but otherwise it worked like a real Snitch. Hogwarts should have some of them, but of course they were too stingy to buy any novel equipment, Draco mused as he flew a neat, elegant loop and deftly caught the practice Snitch. But of course, what did he care for Hogwarts? _Hogwarts is history_, Draco decided – history for him, and soon it would be history, period.

Rechter nodded joylessly as Draco presented the Snitch. "Not a bad catch, considering that you have no opponent here on the practice pitch," he sneered. His harsh _Rs and mispronounced _TH_s made Draco wince inwardly, but he managed to reply politely: "You will see, Rechter, I will make the team proud tomorrow."_

After practice, Draco took one of the tepid showers that were typical for Durmstrang and changed into his school uniform, leaving off the fur coat, as there was still some summer left. Here in the Northern Ural, the climate was much rougher than even in Scotland. Sometimes he was homesick, or even schoolsick: The philosophy of Durmstrang translated into something like 'nobility through hardships;' in spite of the outrageous school fees, students were far from spoiled in the Russian wizard school. Correspondence with his parents was strictly limited, as was the amount of sweets that parents might send their children. Narcissa, who had made a habit of sending owls to Hogwarts nearly every day, was not pleased by such policies. Neither was Draco. If he did not watch it, he might actually long for the school he had left behind.

Consulting his watch, Draco realised he had almost an hour of spare time which he could spend in Durmstrang's computer room. Unlike old-fashioned Hogwarts, the school was connected to the internet; an expensive anti-magic isolation ensured that the Muggle devices functioned properly in the magic-soaked atmosphere of the ancient school. The school philosophy of Durmstrang might say that it was the birth right of pure-blooded wizards to rule the world, but this did not mean that the school had any anti-technology policy: Ignoring the Muggles' scientific progress would have put wizards at an undue disadvantage. A true wizard, Draco's teachers believed, did not shy away from even using a _combination_ of magic and technology to achieve his ends; there were plans to establish Digimagic as a school subject next year. Above all things, the advantages of the Muggle telecommunication system were not ignored in Durmstrang any longer. After all, international magical cooperation was crucial.

 An exchange program with Boston Magical Highschool had provided many students with American pen-pals. The Americans had come for an international sports competition between the two schools, which had yielded the predictable results: Durmstrang, or rather, the notorious and over-privileged Gospod team, had flatted their guests in Quidditch, while – surprise – the Americans had utterly defeated the Hudojnic Quidditch team in a Quodpot match. Of course, the teachers insisted, the meeting was not about sports, but about international friendship and contact. Draco had adopted this policy by befriending the Varsity Quodpot team captain Chad, and by exchanging e-mail addresses on the day of parting. Chad was probably a useful person to know, especially as the two boys seemed to be on the same political wavelength. The BMH student was the founder and president of the school club _Future Death Eaters of America; he had assured Draco that in the United States, there were hundreds of wizards willing to support Voldemort. Draco already saw the two of them as grown wizards and Death Eaters, cooperating across the ocean, sharing and dividing the power between them._

"Mr. Lupin, my curse teacher." Chad's last e-mail had awoken Draco's curiosity; it was like a dust particle on the lens of his mind – something that should not be there at all. In his reply, Draco had included the following remark: 

_By the way, I am intrigued by your mentioning of a certain Mr. Lupin. At my former, British school, we once had a loser of the same name, teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts (a typical Hogwarts thing – they are too noble to learn the proper stuff!). I wonder if this is just a coincidence, or whether there is any connection between the two teachers. If we are talking about the same Lupin, you should be aware that he is a dangerous werewolf. Of course, it is highly unlikely that the two Lupins are identical,, as by British laws, such a creature is not permitted to leave the country in any way._

Draco checked his e-mail account. Yes, Chad had replied. Draco sat back on his cushionless, wooden chair and read the words on the screen:

_Hiya, Draco,_

_thanks for your mail and for asking about the team. We have flattened two more schools this season, and are well on our way to the regional cup. There have been no more than seventeen injuries taken from exploding Quods this year, which is also pretty good._

_I'm looking forward to you lot coming over next spring. I will make sure that you'll stay at my house; my mom and dad will be delighted to have a real English noble wizard around. Hope you'll get a chance to practice Quodpot a bit in the meantime, though, or the next game will probably result in a few casualties, haw haw._

_About that teacher: I'm pretty sure we are not talking about the same person – after all, I should know if my curse teacher is a werewolf, shouldn't I? He is medium-sized, in his mid- to late thirties, has greyish hair, green eyes, a ridiculous passion for chocolate – does that ring a bell??_

_Anyway, gotta go deatheating, the club is meeting in five minutes._

_See ya,_

_Chad_

Draco frowned; he stared at Chad's e-mail until the screen-saver went on, displaying, ironically, silly, waving cartoon witches on broomsticks. The description, vague as it was, failed to convince him that Chad's teacher was not Remus Lupin; actually, it fitted him pretty well. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The stranger was smallish and balding; apart from his silvery right hand prosthesis, he looked conspicuously unimpressive, not at all like an idol of future Death Eaters. Draco had never seen the wizard before, but he knew at once that his Combat Magic teacher, Ludmila Davies, must have had a good reason to ask the Inostranits to meet him. An Anglo-Russian with an almost tolerable pronunciation of English, she was the head of Inostranit house. As Draco`s father had said, Professor Davies was a person to be trusted; she would support their cause, and she would not assemble her students for nothing.

"Dear students of Inostranit, I would like you to meet Mr. Petrodent, who has come from England," she announced slightly pompously. "He is visiting zis school to talk to you, and to seek your aid on a verry important matter."

The wizard cleared his throat and let his gaze wonder over the group of students. "Dear students of the newly-reopened house Inostranit," he addressed them. It was obvious that he was giving a speech he had practiced, maybe even memorised for this occasion. "I have come to see you for a very special reason, no, for three very special reasons. Even more than the other four houses of Durmstrang, Inostranit traditionally stands for support of pure-bloodedness, for bravery and stealth, for students willing to earn themselves power in this world. In times of crisis, when the riffraff of the progressives taint the old honourable wizard schools of Europe with their petty new customs, students of many countries assemble here to pursue their education true to their ancestral roots. Therefore, my first reason for coming here is to congratulate you on choosing Durmstrang, and especially, Inostranit as your Alma Mater, which in itself is almost a pledge of loyalty to my master. My second aim is to get to know you all, and to establish contact between us, for surely we will be of use to each other in the future."

Mr. Petrodent gave the Inostranits long, wannabe-significant looks. Draco found the stranger's watery blue eyes slightly appalling, particularly the way they were framed by pink, bulgy lachrymal sacs.  Alright, Petrodent was finally coming to recruit them for You-Know-Who, that was at least something – but couldn't the Lord of Darkness have sent someone a little more _glamorous? In spite of his expensively tailored new robes, the Death Eater (for surely he was one) looked like something picked up from the gutter, someone whose fate it was to follow, not to lead. _

"Thirdly and most importantly, I have come to ask your help on behalf on the Dark Lord," Petrodent continued at last. "If you are willing to serve him, he will greatly reward you and give you power over wizards and Muggles alike. He commanded me to tell you the following: 'I call all of you into my service. The way to fame, to riches and to power is to become a Death Eater, a servant of Darkness. Join my ranks, and you will not regret it. Shirk your duty, and you will be known as a weakling, as a coward. Oppose me, and you will regret it more than words can say.'"

"We are willing to serve the Dark Lord!" Siegfried Rechter exclaimed immediately, his right hand raised high into the air in a dramatic gesture. Draco cringed inwardly; the German had no trace of style or tact. Even Ludmila Davies, who was so hopelessly ugly and unstylish that Draco found it hard to feel even the slightest respect for her, bit her bottom lip and kept her eyes on the floor. Petrodent, however, looked pleased. Consulting his notes, he said:

"Siegfried Rechter, is this correct?" 

"Rechter, Siegfried – Inostranit Seventh Year, at your service and at the service of our master, Sir Petrodent," Rechter replied with military promptness, raised his right hand again and then lowered it to roll up his left sleeve, just as if he was expecting to be awarded a Dark Mark on the spot. In spite of the serious and long-expected occasion, Draco found it hard not to snicker.

"I am grateful at your display of faith in my master," Petrodent replied. "It is wizards like you he needs most. As I said, he needs your help, and I am most glad that some of you are willing to offer it on good faith."

Draco did not really consider it a good idea to offer his help before he knew what exactly would be requested of him, but neither did he want to seem less enthusiastic than a moron like Rechter. After all, he had always known he would join the ranks of the Death Eaters one day. 

"Many of us have longed to serve the Dark Lord since our childhood, and we are glad that the time has finally come," he remarked evenly, once more congratulating himself for his smooth, calm, but already manly voice. Erecting himself to his full height, he said: "Mr. Petrodent, what would the Dark Lord have us do for him?"

"The Dark Lord has big plans for all of you," Petrodent replied. "To fulfil his greatest ambition for this year, he needs many powerful wands, and he hopes that yours will have the honour to be among them. Your first task in the service of the Dark Lord will be to aid him in the utter destruction of Hogwarts."

At first, Draco hoped he hadn't heard correctly; next to him, he heard Pansy Parkinson gasp. Destroy Hogwarts? Sure, he hated his old school, every true Inostranit did, but to destroy it seemed a bit preposterous, if not, well, over-ambitious. 

"Please tell us, Mr. Petrodent, how the Dark Lord is planning to destroy Hogwarts? Do you want to teach us the Glaciera curse?" he heard himself ask, wishing at the same time he could take back his words for fear of being thought insubordinate. His father had warned him a long time ago that the Dark Lord did not like wizards who asked too many question; the look in his eyes had told Draco that Lucius Malfoy had some personal experience in this matter, and that the experience had been rather painful.

"Draco Malfoy, is it?" Petrodent shot him a cold look of interest. "You are well-informed, but nevertheless, misinformed. As useful as the Glaciera curse is, the Dark Lord has found another, more effective way to annihilate the whole school of Hogwarts. As you know, this school hosts some of my master's most celebrated enemies among its teachers and even among its students; recently, it is rumoured to even hold a refugee camp of the dirty cowards and criminals who call themselves the League. This time when we attack Hogwarts, we will destroy it completely; no stone may remain standing upon the other, and no one may be left alive."

Draco was getting sick of Mr. Petrodent's wannabe-significant looks, but he did not let on; instead, he nodded, stating agreement with all the Death Eater had said, encouraging him to continue.

"This time, our attack on Hogwarts will succeed. The curse we will use is called _Eliminatus; if we assemble the amount of power to conjure up the necessary amount of anti-matter, Hogwarts will disappear from the face of this earth without leaving a trace. All students, all teachers, all refugees, all buildings and everything the castle holds will simply cease to exist. __Eliminatus is a complicated curse which requires a superhuman amount of power if used on such a large and well-protected aim; however, with experienced witches and wizards conducting the curse, all that you students will have to do is learn to channel your powers and to lend them to us. With your help, our biggest enemy, Hogwarts, will soon be no more."_

For the briefest moment, Draco thought of the owlery, of the giant squid, of Professor Snape and some of his former housemates in Slytherin. Cease to exist, be no more.... He shook his head to ban such doubts where they belonged. You-Know-Who promised his servants power, and Petrodent openly offered it to them in his stead. He, Draco, wanted this power; he would step into his father's shoes, would even outshine Lucius. One day, he wanted to be the second-in-command, the most powerful wizard besides You-Know-Who. The only way to achieve this was to do the Dark Lord's bidding, and to prove that he could do better, significantly better, than all his peers. 

"Teach us what is required, Mr. Petrodent," Draco said, knowing that he looked and sounded great as he said this. "Lead us the way into the Dark Lord's service, so we can prove our devotion to him."


	8. Neville

8 – Neville 

Once upon a time, the list of Neville Longbottom's deepest and most heartfelt desires had been fairly short. As he was growing up, he found the list was becoming longer, not shorter. As a boy of ten, he had believed that the misery would ooze out of his life if only he showed sufficient signs of magic to be accepted at Hogwarts. Two years later, already a Hogwarts student, he could only re-formulate this wish, and as such it had stayed on top of his list a long, long time: He wanted to show sufficient signs of magic to be _accepted_ at Hogwarts, as in, accepted as one of them. 

The closest he had ever come to the fulfilment of this wishes were the post-full moon days, when due to Professor Varlerta's audio magic and the power of the stone circles, Neville had felt magic run through his veins like a strange form of enhanced fuel. That was how a true wizard must feel, Neville realised, one who was sure of his powers, one who never worried about being publicly revealed as a squib.

Of course, just as every wish fulfilment gave birth to new desires, Neville could not help wishing that he might always feel just like he felt after a night dancing and playing at the stone circle, that he would always feel so empowered, so sure of his strength. However, another wish had gradually started to overshadow the habitual desire of finally fulfilling his family's and teachers' expectations. This was something he wanted for himself, and it even felt as if this wish was the true reason behind Neville ever wishing to be a real wizard: He wanted Ginny Weasley, wanted her as his friend, his magical companion and his girlfriend. He wanted to share with her the amazing discoveries of music magic, wanted to play with her and gain power together with her. He wanted to open his heart to her, tell her about his childhood, about his dreams, about things he had never talked about with anybody. He wanted to walk hand in hand with her so everybody would see she was his girlfriend. And oh, yes, although he was thoroughly embarrassed by the thought, he wanted to be close to her, to touch her.

Neville might be a squib, an incarnation of clumsiness, an accident waiting to happen, but he was no fool. It was obvious that Ginny Weasley was not in love with him, that in fact she had a habit of bestowing her affection onto whatever male was sufficiently unattainable. Neville had to accept that and hope that time would better his chances if he acted tolerably sensible in the meantime; humbling himself with an embarrassing, sloppy-sounding confession would not do any good at all. All he could do was to wait, to be a good friend, and to trust in the improbability that any of Ginny's idols would ever take notice of her. Maybe one day would be _his_ day; up to that moment, all he could do was try to preserve his dignity. A few times in his life, his deepest desire had been fulfilled, or rather, partially fulfilled; maybe once again, his wishes might come true if he only waited patiently.

However, recently Neville had been subject to another feeling, no, to an urge, which permitted no delay. What he wanted now, what to his confusion he craved with the same force as he had craved his other deepest desires, was to play in Ginny's band. He wasn't really into pop and rock music, besides borrowing the odd CD from Professor Varlerta, but the minute he had heard about it, he realised that he would much rather play in this band than even to earn great-uncle Algie's or his grandmother's respect. When the _Magic Mushrooms_ had played a concert at Hogwarts, since he had seen his classmates, had seen all students of Hogwarts cheering and enjoying themselves, he had felt an overwhelming yearning for a place up there on the stage. When he closed his eyes at night, just before he went to sleep, he saw himself standing there, everybody's eyes on him, and then he would _play_. He would show them that he was worth something, that he could enchant them with his own, special kind of magic. Only then, Neville was convinced, would he have found his place in the world, would have found his place at Hogwarts.

Playing in a band was a dream. Playing in _Ginny's_ band – that was a special, a very sweet dream. He loved playing music with her, loved to be around her, and had already become enamoured to the scant amount of glory the band had so far accumulated. Julian Hengert's refusal of the post of Quidditch captain for the sake of the band was nothing short of amazing. On weekends, Neville could see the three band members sit together somewhere on house-neutral ground, the centre of attention, almost heaven. This was where he wanted to be, and if Hermione was to be believed, he _would, or rather, he _might_ be welcome there soon._

He understood – well, he _almost understood that the band did not need him as a flute player, so his ambition had to be to become the band's singer. When he had asked Ginny, she had declined politely and kindly. Then, Hermione – merciful, altruistic, miraculously kind Hermione – had asked her again. Later, she had given Neville one of her gentle, pitying looks and reported about her conversation with Ginny:_

"She just gave me one of those ironic looks of hers and said: 'Yeah, right – Robert Plant, John Garcia, Maynard James Keenan, Neville Longbottom.' I have no idea who she was talking about, but I am afraid she did not mean it kindly. Teenage rebellion, if you ask me – sometimes I wish Ginny was maturing a little faster."

Neville had thanked Hermione for her effort, biting back the remark that as a Muggle-born, she should _at least know who Robert Plant was. Hermione wasn't into music at all, that much was sure; however, her memory worked extra-ordinarily well, so she could correctly recount everything Ginny had related to her. As far as Neville's knowledge about music was concerned, at least he had found his personal equivalent for what the library was to Hermione – he had discovered Professor Varlerta's extensive CD collection. The teacher had expressed her approval of Neville's intention, had lent him a portable, magic-powered CD-player and whatever CD he asked for, remarking that all her possessions were bound to her by an auto-return spell._

"It would be nice if you two played in a band together, I think," she had commented. "Of course, I don't want to get involved – accepting you or not accepting you must be the choice of Ginny and her band members. However, if I can be of assistance to you in any way, just ask me: I don't see how this could harm either you or the band."

Neville had withdrawn into the empty classroom where he usually practiced playing his flute. There he had listened to Varlerta's CDs and had found the three songs the band was currently practicing. He had written down the lyrics where the booklet did not supply them, and then he had tried to sing along with them, hoping that nobody could hear his first attempts. 

One thing was certain: He sounded neither like Robert Plant or John Garcia, and he certainly did not have a voice as expressive as Maynard James Keenan, either. He tried to judge his own voice, to make a realistic self-assessment, but found this immensely difficult. Was his voice any good at all, or was it embarrassing? Would all the band members laugh at him this afternoon, when he would attend their practice in way of an audition? Neville was not sure of himself at all. – At least the dreadful period when his voice had broken was over, he reminded himself, but that was little comfort. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

During the first few weeks of the school year, Neville found Professor Varlerta mainly focused on revision with her apprentices; she had taught them some things that had to do with music rather than with magic, and she had prepared Ginny for tutoring her year mates in Coaxing. She had also taken the two students to a different stone circle after deciding that after the attack of last spring, it was not safe to return to the one they had used before. At the new site, she had checked out the area with a magical device that found traps and ambushes before she, Neville and Ginny had once more walked a stone circle on the night of a full moon to fill themselves with the power these places had to offer.

Soaking up stone circle magic once more was in itself a very satisfying experience. Still, Neville could not help feeling that their education had not really started for this year, that Varlerta was killing time, just as if they were still waiting for something. When the teacher met her apprentices right in front of her building for that day's lesson, he knew from her eyes and her posture that she had something important to tell them; the wait was up, it seemed.

 "Over the holidays, I have done some serious thinking about how to continue your teaching," she told them after a short exchange of greetings. "As you are sure to have guessed, you two have very special talents which should prove useful not only for yourselves, but hopefully also to the magical community as a whole, maybe even in our fight against Voldemort. In this context, there is only one logical next step, even if it is a dangerous one. A friend of mine provocatively called it 'turning you into weapons,' but I wouldn't go as far – I rather see it as a way of arming you two for the difficult situations you will undoubtedly have to face."

Neville bit his lip; next to him, he could hear Ginny's sharp intake of breath. Of course, he knew that like all teachers, Varlerta claimed that her teaching would make the two of them useful members of society; he also knew that presently, the threat of Voldemort and his supporters was one of the foremost problems of the magical society. However, to hear it in such bland terms that Varlerta was teaching them her music magic as a means of fighting Voldemort was a bit shocking. Of course, he had always known that one day, they would expect him to be an adult; his participation in a fight against ten Death Eaters last spring might have been a first step towards assuming the responsibilities of a grown wizard. Still, that fight had been a spontaneous act done at need; to consciously learn skills which were to be used in the fight against Voldemort was another matter altogether. Varlerta's expectation in her two apprentices showed him that even a near-squib as he could not hide in the merry realm of youth forever, such as there was. Whatever she was going to teach him now, and whatever use he would be expected to make of her teaching, neither would be child's play.

"Call me silly and superstitious," Varlerta continued, "but I believe it no accident that I chose you two for my assistants, and that you chose your particular instruments to play. Oh well –" the teacher grinned and rolled up her eyes in a slightly self-ironic gesture, "maybe all it means is that I, as well as you, chose well. As you maybe know, the drum and the flute are among the oldest instruments ever used for magical purposes – perhaps because they are among the oldest instruments ever made. Although there are immense cultural differences around the world, the drum is a traditional female instrument and the flute a traditional male instrument in many shamanic cultures. This, of course, does not have to mean a thing, but I cannot shake off the feeling that your studies with me mean more than a bit of research assistance and an extra credit for school. As critical as I am of Divination, prophecies and such things, I believe you two were _meant to learn these things with me. That's why I started thinking about teaching you things that are definitely not on the regular curriculum._

"When I came here this summer, I had my mind all made up," the teacher continued. "Then the school year started, and I reconsidered my decision, maybe for no better reason than cowardice. Now I have changed my mind again – I will teach you what I believe you will need to learn, though let us all keep in mind that we are dealing with a very dangerous and touchy matter here. What I want to teach you is to use your music to Coax living beings, that is, to Coax animals and later even humans, to get them to do your will."

Neville and Ginny exchanged a stare of awe. Neither knew what to say. Finally, Ginny broke the silence. In a small and shaky voice, she asked: "But isn't that forbidden, at least where humans are concerned?"

Varlerta emitted a short and not altogether joyful laugh. "Technically speaking, it is not forbidden. There are no laws for audio magic, neither in this country nor in most others, as music is a branch of magic which is still largely neglected. While most ways to interfere with other people's minds or willpower are strictly forbidden – be they illusion charms or love potions – the Dark Arts Regulation Act of 1946 does not even mention music, or Coaxing. Therefore, what I'm going to teach you is dangerous, and may even border on the unethical if misused, but it is not illegal. As I told you, I am not altogether comfortable with teaching such methods, because they involve a number of risks for you as well as for all of us, Professor Dumbledore finally convinced me that these are risks we have to take. If you handle these skills well, you might one day be able to change the mind of a Death Eater who is raising his wand to kill just by playing music at him. The mere possibility that you could learn such a thing should be reason enough for us to take a few risks.

 "Coaxing people with music is a very old, a very powerful and a very dangerous branch of magic. I will teach you the basics as far as I mastered them because I trust you, but also because I am convinced that if you ever feel the desire to manipulate people to do your will, you will find a way to do it, whether by spell, potion or music, whether or not I teach you these skills. All I can do is hope that my trust in your abilities as well as in your conscience are as great as I believe."

She must indeed think his skills to be greater than they actually were, Neville thought, if she believed him capable of manipulating anyone with a charm or a potion. Neither subject had ever been among his few talents, and having dropped out of Potions after his fourth year did not help, either. As far as his conscience was concerned.... The thought of being able to Coax another person into doing his will was simply outrageous. He could.... he could Coax Ginny into accepting him as a singer, could even Coax her into kissing him. But no, these thoughts were forbidden thoughts. Neville tried his best to unthink them while Varlerta went on:

"Have you ever heard about the Pied Piper of Hameln?" Without waiting for Ginny and Neville to shake their heads, she went on: "It is an old legend about a little medieval German town, but I believe it tells us a true story. In the town of Hameln, there was a rat plague. There were rats everywhere; they ate what they would find, and the citizens went hungry. The town was threatened by famine, so the mayor announced that anyone who could free the town of the rats would get a bag of gold as a reward. Even better, this person would be accepted as a citizen of Hameln, would be protected by the city laws, instead of being an outcast without any rights whatsoever. As it happened, there was a Spielmann in the town, a wandering musician of low birth, but with certain magical abilities. The Spielmann Coaxed the rats into following him by playing his flute; he lead them out of the city, and none of them were ever seen inside its walls again.

"When the rat-catcher came back to the town for his reward, at first the mayor was overjoyed to be rid of the rats. However, the plague was apparently banned, and with an impending famine and everything, the town didn't exactly have money to burn. So the mayor and his staff of advisors decided to use the Spielmann's outlaw status against him. Instead of accepting him as a citizen, they kicked the magician out of the town without a copper penny. Of course, the Pied Piper took revenge: One night he returned, and when he played his flute that night, he was not Coaxing rats – he was Coaxing children. The Spielmann led all children out of the town of Hameln, and never returned. No matter how hard the citizens looked for their sons and daughters, none of them was ever seen again."

Neville did not know what to say. Varlerta had only told them a little story, a legend, but it seemed to have a sinister lining of truth. "Were the children alright?" Ginny finally asked.

Varlerta shrugged. "Nobody ever found out. The Pied Piper might have led them to a better, more honest town, or he might have led them all into death, we do not know. What we do know, however, is that although the Pied Piper had been wickedly cheated, his revenge was not justified, because he punished mostly the innocent. What happened to him was not the children's fault, probably not even the fault of most of their grieving parents. His situation was one I consider a living bomb – an excess of magical power paired off with an absolutely powerless social status. And now think – one day, maybe in a few years, maybe even in a few decades, you might find yourselves in a similar situation. What I ask of you is promise me here and now that whatever power I might teach you, you will not abuse it even in a time of need, not even when you feel that injustice has been done to you."

Neville found his throat dry. An absolutely powerless social status – well, he knew how that felt. An excess of magical power – well, that was something he would probably never possess. Making a promise would be absolutely safe then.

"I promise," he replied even before Ginny could say the same.

"Very well." The teacher fixed both of them with her stare. "We will start with a bit of meditation and some musical exercises today. If we have covered the basics of the basics, so to speak, which will hopefully be two weeks from today, we will move on to Coaxing animals. You will learn to be a snake charmer, a bee charmer, a horse charmer – any of these useful charms which witches and wizards have practiced for ages even among Muggles without being seen as a threat. By the way, of course this is all top secret – you are _not_ to blab about it to your classmates, and it won't really help if you tell your families any details before Dumbledore has owled them to explain everything and to obtain their permission. As for Coaxing humans, I will learn alongside of you, because I certainly do not consider myself an expert in this area yet. However, if we work hard –" she moved her hand in a circle, indicating the forest, "that realm of magic over there will be our playground soon."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When he left Varlerta's classroom, the thought of Coaxing living beings filled Neville's mind; it even banned all thoughts of the band for a while. However, as the day wore on, he found that he was suffering from terrible stage fright, or rather, from practice room fright. At lunch, Neville felt as if he had devoured a battalion of pixies burping red hot chilli peppers: His stomach was buzzing with cramps. Mashing the cake on his plate into pulp, he acknowledged that he could not eat a thing. Instead, he berated himself for having initiated the audition that was to come. They would not want him in their band, that much was certain. Why, oh why, did he have to create this embarrassing situation for himself, when he knew that he was doomed to fail? Only pride kept Neville from running away these last two hours before the start of band practice.

He took out the CDs holding the three songs which, according to Hermione, made up the band's current repertoire and played them one last time on his portable CD-player. Certainly he wouldn't tackle _Soundgarden's_ "The Day I Tried To Live" as his first song – that would have been the equivalent of a vocal self-mutilation, and whatever cure Neville might envision for his numerous problems in life, he was completely devoid of suicidal tendencies. Anyway, deep in his heart he doubted that the band would be able to play this particular song any time soon, as it wasn't particularly easy. It wouldn't be a good idea to pick _The Weird Sisters'_ "She's like a Demiguise" as his first song either – he could only sing the melody properly if the whole song was transposed down for about a quart, and he did not want to ask the band to do so for the very first song he'd sing. No, there was really no question what he would sing first.

 To have any chance at all, he had to make a good impression straight away. They would make their decision regarding him after the first song he sang, he was sure of it: Either they would send him away, or they would – send him away. "Nevermind," Neville told himself bravely as he walked down the corridor on slightly wobbly legs – fail he might, fail he would, but at least he would have tried.

The band room in the castle's west wing had been out of use for a while; for some reason unknown to Neville, its cleanliness was a trifle below house-elves standards. Peeking through the door that stood ajar, Neville could see that the band had decorated the walls with a few posters of bands, most of them prints of strange, lifeless Muggle photographs. Julian and Rhonda were sitting on the windowsill, while Ginny had pulled up the stool that usually stood behind her drum set. All three band members were dressed a bit more casually than the dress-code of Hogwarts allowed; they had obviously discarded their school robes for band practice. Julian wore black leather pants and a black t-shirt which sported a picture of a tortoise bubbling out the words 'Transfigure me, baby!' Both Ginny and Rhonda wore Gryffindor cardigans with black denims; Neville was once more struck by the violent clash between the official Gryffindor scarlet and Ginny's hair. Embarrassed, he looked down at his own, boring school robes, which were wrinkled as usual and sported the odd hole; work as they might, the house elves could not mend his clothes as fast as he managed to tear or damage them. Neville felt significantly uncool and badly dressed, felt like an intruder in this oasis of subculture; he fought his urge to sneak away before any of the band members would notice him. Unsure whether he should go inside or to go back to Gryffindor Tower, he listened to the conversation in which the three musicians were totally absorbed.

"Yes, but I just don't think it's _fair," Julian said with feeling. "She's been through a lot last year, with her boyfriend dying and everything, and she's worked hard to overcome her momentary lapses. Most importantly, she's proven a number of times that she's a great Seeker. She's also won us the cup last school year, and it's not like that shouldn't count for anything. In my opinion, she deserved to be team captain at least as much as me. Plus, she's in her last year, so if she hadn't gotten the position now, she'd never get another chance. I don't see why Ragnar and Richard are giving her such a hard time now, especially as she certainly has captain qualities – organisation, pep talk, you know."_

"It's Ragnar's last year, too," Rhonda reminded him meekly.

Julian made a face at her. "Ragnar is a bad loser, that's all there is to it," he replied. "We all know that we can have only one captain at a time, and as a team member, I am rather glad that this one captain is _not_ Ragnar. You see, if I had suggested a bloke in my stead, anyone of the other four except maybe Richard, who is still a bit young for the post, nobody would complain. Neither would they be so hard on Cho if she was a boy. They are just mindless machos – they do not like to have a girl as a captain, that's the real problem. As it is, they are just being bad sports about it – if Cho ever makes a mistake, they really let her feel it, remind her of it again and again – they do what they can to put loads of pressure on her. That's hardly a way to be a shnirking team, if you ask me!"

"Gryffindor's had a girl for a team captain last year, too," Ginny commented, almost but not quite on topic.

"Oh, Joolz, why do you always have to use those bad words?" Rhonda said in a teasing manner. "I bet you don't even know what 'shnirk' means."

"Sure I do," Julian replied in a very superior tone. 

"So what does it mean? I don't, as a matter of fact. Please share your expert knowledge with us!" Rhonda teased, leaning back on the windowsill with feline grace.

Julian, the cool Joolz, actually blushed under his dreadlocks – Neville could see it clearly from where he stood. 

"Er," Julian replied hesitatingly, "something dirty, at any rate. I'd rather spare you two the details, because I wouldn't want to offend your dainty ears with such verbal scum."

"Never mind, Joolz," Ginny said with the excitement of anticipation in her voice. "Just tell us what it means! Tell us the worst at once!"

Julian sighed. "Okay, okay, Gin, I admit it – I don't know exactly. It's certainly something very, very dirty, I know that much. Read _Quidditch in Bed_ if you desperately want to know, maybe the book explains what 'shnirk' means."

"It doesn't," Neville quietly said before he could check himself. 

All three heads turned towards him. "Hey, Neville," Rhonda said and waved as if he was welcome. "Hi, mate," Julian said rather pleasantly. Ginny, however, looked at him as though he was a three-headed dog.

"You've read _Quidditch in Bed??" she gasped._

Neville felt himself blush scarlet. It hadn't been the cool thing to say, he realised. Admittedly, he _had read the famous old standard volume about, well, about the facts of life, as his grandmother would term it. He had found the book among his parents' old things, and although he had felt like he was committing a sacrilege, he had consumed it eagerly this summer during the lonely nights in the half-empty Longbottom mansion. Knowledge was power, that much he had learned from Hermione, and in spite of his round face, which was moreover adorned with a handful of spots, he had not entirely given up hope that he might need this particular kind of knowledge one fine, remote day._

Julian saved Neville by sliding off the windowsill, walking over to him and giving him a manly clap on the shoulder. "Cool that you came, mate," he said, disregarding the two girls' severe attack of giggles.

"Hi Julian," Neville said shyly. "Hi Rhonda, hi –" for some absurd reason, his voice almost failed him, "hi Ginny."

Ginny snorted, perhaps because they had just seen each other a few hours ago. Neville banned all thoughts of Varlerta's announcement regarding Coaxing humans from his mind and went over to the microphone. He fiddled with the stand and self-consciously uttered a few words into the microphone so Ginny could adjust the volume on the small, battered sound mixer Varlerta had lent them. When Rhonda strapped the bass guitar over her shoulder, he recognised it as a possession of the teacher as well; the same was true of all the amplifiers in the room.

"I want to do _Radiohead's'Creep' first," he said hoarsely. _

"Good choice, I love that song," Julian said. The girls nodded; Rhonda fiddled with her notes, which were not music notes, Neville noticed, but rather a couple of letters and cryptic rhythm symbols jotted down on a piece of parchment.

"All set, everybody?" Julian asked after Ginny had taken the stool back to her drum set and had sat down on it. Rhonda and Ginny affirmed briefly that they were; Neville merely nodded, feeling his throat closing up. How could he sing like that? They would really hate it, that much was certain.

Ginny indicated a count to four with her sticks; the band plunged into the intro. Neville could not help noticing that while Julian and Ginny were doing nicely, Rhonda had a little problem with the rhythm of the bass line although it was already simplified to suit her beginner's skills. In spite of this, the band already sounded like a band; the intro was certainly recognisable as the beginning of a piece of music that Neville rather liked. 'Creep' was a song he could identify with, in fact, a song that had touched something inside of him when he had first heard it. During the seventh bar of the intro, Neville closed his eyes, took a deep breath and correctly came in on the pick-up notes in the eighth bar:

_When you were here before (the first line sounded quite alright when he sang it, actually)__  
Couldn't look you in the eye (because some of these days he couldn't look anybody in the eye, it seemed)  
_You're just like an angel _(admittedly, other parts of the lyrics were just a _little_ exaggerated)_  
Your skin makes me cry_ (because why should anybody's skin – well, never mind that now!)  
_You float like a feather_ (he managed for once not to think of Flitwick and to concentrate on the melody instead)__  
In a beautiful world (to emphasise the lines to come, he had practiced to make his voice sound understated here)  
_And I wish I was special_ (this line expressed his situation quite well – hey, why was Julian staring at him?)__  
You're so fuckin' special (yes, Ginny certainly was – he closed his eyes again and put all his feelings into the song)s_

_But I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo (a simple statement of truth – but he mustn't forget to breathe here after the long notes)_  
What the hell am I doing here?_ (he knew the feeling very well, but for now, funnily, it had evaporated)_  
I don't belong here_ (he loved this chorus – even if he __didn't belong here, this once he'd sing the song with all his heart.)_

The rest of the song went by in a kind of blur – the lyrics he had practiced and even memorised streamed freely out of his mouth, into the microphone and out of the speakers. In between lines, he noticed how well Julian and Ginny increased the musical tension without overdoing it, which would have ruined the overall feeling of the song. The band supported Neville's voice like a gust of wind; while singing "she's running out again," he felt as if he had finally learned to ride a broomstick properly. Even the occasional blunder of Rhonda could not throw him off course. When he finished the song, when the last notes died on the instruments' strings and faded into the general static hum of the magic-powered amplifiers, he knew that whatever anybody else might say, he had done well. Anxiously he looked around.

"Hey mate, I think that was pretty cool. If you ask me, you're on!" Julian addressed him with an appreciating nod. 

"Cool," Rhonda said. Neville had the impression that she was mainly parroting Julian, but this might be because she had been so pre-occupied with the task of mastering her instrument that she hadn't been able to really listen to him.

Neville cast a shy look at Ginny. To him, it was her opinion that really counted. She did not look up at him, but fiddled with her snare drum and a small drum-tuning tool. 

"Gin?" Julian asked softly, twisting a dreadlock between his fingers.

Finally, Ginny looked up and into Neville's eyes. He felt his heart miss a beat. "That was really great, Neville," she said. "I apologise for saying you couldn't sing rock, and if it's okay with the others, I would really like to have you in the band." 


	9. Snape

**9 – Snape **

Florean Fortescue was blackmailing him; there were no two ways about it. Snape felt the wrath of the helpless take hold of him each time he thought about it. To be at the mercy of the glib ice-cream salesman – a humiliation that sought its peer.

Recently he had been requested to Floo to Fortescue's London shop rather often: Fortescue was the 'information manager' of the infamous League, so keeping in touch with him was undoubtedly important. The radical organisation had a well-organised web of spies and observers, of communication technology and of divination experts. If you wanted information of any kind, the League was the place to start asking – _if you could convince them that your aims and their aims were the same, and that in helping you, the League would promote their own goals as well._

There were a number of things Dumbledore wanted to know which coincided with minor or major interests of the League. In return for trust and cooperation, Fortescue was willing to share certain facts that had been dug up by League informants. For both Dumbledore's order and the League, a major topic of interest was, of course, anything that had to do with the Death Eaters' plans and activities. To everybody's great disadvantage, neither the League nor Dumbledore had any spies among the followers of Voldemort. Of course, only an utter fool would ever voluntarily take such a tremendous risk, Snape contemplated as he fiddled with his newly purchased, larger headphones – for example a nineteen-year-old dupe whose ratio had been crippled with shame, regret and, why not face the facts, with the confusion that accompanied carnal desires. These days, of course, had long passed; Snape prided himself on having learned a thing or two since then – and so had Voldemort, who knew about Snape's treachery. As much as the order and the League needed a spy among the Death Eaters, he could never go back to Voldemort again. While Snape certainly did not flatter himself by thinking he would be on top of Voldemort's 'slowly torture to death' list, he was sure that along with Dumbledore, the blasted Potter boy and the President of the League, he had at least made the top ten.

No, Florean had agreed with Snape at yesterday's meeting – Snape was off the spy game for good. As the conversion of another Death Eater was hardly likely, they urgently had to find someone else who would become a Death Eater just to be a spy. But who, Snape wondered, would be brave – nay, foolhardy – enough to undertake such a dangerous mission? Wasn't there some young, unimportant, not overly bright, but nevertheless talented little liar among the pawns of the League? Florean had answered in the negative, sounding less than pleased with Snape's attitude. The League did not sacrifice their young for such deadly missions, even if a fanatic could be found who would be willing to undertake the task, he had replied rather pointedly. However, meeting with Florean was not a complete waste of time: At least some League spies seemed to be on a hot trace regarding others that Dumbledore wanted. Peter Pettigrew, Florean had said, was rumoured not only to be alive and spying, but also to have been sighted at Durmstrang. They would find him, Florean had promised; Sirius Black would soon be cleared. Snape couldn't have cared less.

After the two wizards had finished talking business, Fortescue had started blackmailing Snape once more. "I've got some more CDs which I'm sure you'll like," he'd said, a triumphant gleam in his eyes. And of course, gullible and meek as he was, Snape would buy. What else could he do? 

His first impulse purchase at Florean's little magic CD shop had put him at the salesman's mercy: Fool that he was, Snape had let him on that he was interested in the music his colleague's band, _The Magic Mushrooms_. At his next visit, Florean had guiled Snape with another, older CD of Valerie's band; when Snape had betrayed interest, Fortescue had piled the lot on the counter: _The Smashing Pumpkins_, _Radiohead, __Blur, the second _Portishead_ album (Snape had already owned the first one), __Björk, _Tori_ __Amos – there was no end in sight. When Snape had reacted less than enthusiastically, Florean had insinuated that perhaps Snape was only interested in _The Magic Mushrooms_ after all? Snape had swallowed a heated reply. He would not let on that he was not exactly indifferent to his colleague, Professor Varlerta. There was no telling in what the 'information manager' of the League might do with this particular piece of information, but Snape was reluctant to find out. To avoid this, he had bought the CDs Florean had recommended to him. He should have known that would not be the end of it._

Next time it was _Pearl Jam and __Soundgarden, _L7_, __the Gathering, __the Butthole Surfers and a rather peculiar album of __Lucullus and the Death Eaters. Snape had bought. Fortescue had sold him _Fugazi_ and _Sonic Youth_, had sold him __PJ Harvey, had sold him __Tool, had sold him __Babes in Toyland as a special recommendation. To treat his special customer, he had taken to owling the Potions Master of Hogwarts the NME from time to time. It was driving Snape around the bends. _

There was no question of just throwing his purchases away, of course; despite their outward display of affluence, Sir and Lady Snape had taught their son to be stingy at heart. Buying something and not using it afterwards was unthinkable to Snape, so he took care to listen to all of the CDs he had been forced to buy and even to read that dratted Muggle music paper, the New Musical Express. At least now he was getting a say in what kind of music he was buying, he contemplated. "I draw the line at Stoner Rock, Florean," he had said through gritted teeth at yesterday's meeting, and to his surprise, Florean had put the old _Kyuss and __Monstermagnet CDs back into their shelves.  _

Even though he could not say that he liked the music he was forced to listen to straight away, he had to admit he was gradually becoming attached to some of it. This, of course, was a weakness he would stamp out again if he ever got around to it. As it was, he kept the portable, magic-powered CD-player, newly equipped with proper headphones, on the table next to his narrow cot. After all, listening to music was a measure of self-defence: There was this song in his head, and it was driving him _crazy!_

Students of all four houses appeared to have united against him, plotting to destroy his sanity by humming this song. Hengert, the good-for-nothing Ravenclaw with the silly hair, was humming it; so were all his worthless team mates, except for their sad-looking Seeker. A couple of Slytherin fourth-years had hummed the song yesterday in the dungeon hallway, among them a shy girl called Kay whose clear voice was hardly ever heard under normal circumstances. The Hufflepuffs were humming the tune now and then, more slowly and with less passion than suited the song, but humming it nevertheless. Celps, another half-witted Quidditch player, was whistling it. Worst of all, he had caught Ginny Weasleysinging the song repeatedly, singing it _complete with its lyrics_, for Merlin's sake! 

So far, Snape had tacitly permitted the youngest (and hopefully last) Weasley offspring to hum during his class, as he had observed that her Potion making performance underwent a significant improvement if she was humming while stirring. He had even contemplated suggesting her as a candidate for a NEWT in Potions, something he rarely considered with Gryffindors unless they had wormed their slimy way to the top of his class (where undoubtedly they did not belong). However, Snape thought, he would never assist Ginny on her way to an advanced mastery of his noble art _if she did not stop singing that song at once! He would shake her, he would dunk her headfast into her cauldron to shut her up, he would ... – Snape  put the headphones on his ears, thinking that the end of civilisation must be near if the students were humming the same songs as the teachers. He did not want them to like _his_ music, to own shares in a song that seemed to speak of him, and him only._

_I don't care if it hurts  
I want to have control  
I want a perfect body  
I want a perfect soul  
I want you to notice  
When I'm not around  
You're so fuckin' special  
I wish I was special  
  
But I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo.  
What the hell am I doing here?  
I don't belong here. _

A knock on the door intruded into the enclosed space the music was providing for his bittersweet thoughts. Snape took off the headphones and hid the CD-player under his pillow. "Come in," he said a little later than would have sounded normal. The door opened with an apprehensive shiver; behind it, the trace of a large, red nose and bulging, tearful eyes appeared  – a house-elf, naturally.

"Professor Snape," Winky whispered. "I is regretting so much, sir, that I is intruding, sir, and I is apologising a thousand times, sir, for I is required to tell you, sir, that Professor Dumbledore, the honourable Professor Dumbledore, has requested to see you, sir." As usual, her voice was barely audible even in the silent dungeon; since she had overcome her embarrassing little Butterbeer problem, she was doing her best to make everybody forget her former, scandalous behaviour. As a house servant, she was so devoted that even Snape, used as he was to the obnoxious little creatures, found her a trial.

"I am coming, Winky," he snarled and rose from his cot to follow her to Dumbledore's office. On his way, he wondered what the Headmaster could want from him at this time of the night; since he had been hurt by the Icy Fingers curse, Dumbledore had made a habit of retiring early. It must be something important, he decided and squared his shoulders.

It _was important, it seemed – in his office, Dumbledore was conducting a heated discussion with Cornelius Fudge. Before Snape could make out what the two of them were talking about, Fudge saw him and stopped short in mid-sentence. "Ah, Professor Snape. How nice to see you here," he said in a tone that barely concealed how little indeed he was pleased to see Snape._

"Severus, come and sit down with us," Dumbledore addressed him. "We have to sort out a few important things. I believe you will be able to help us with that."

"Glad to be of assistance," Snape said icily and gave Fudge the evil eye. Ever since the pompous, useless little wizard had denied him the Order of Merlin, Snape had felt an intense dislike for him, a feeling he believed was heartily reciprocated. 

"Er... Albus, I do not believe it was necessary to disturb Professor Snape's well-deserved rest," Fudge said, his eyes anywhere but on Snape. "I believe we can sort things out among the two of us."

"Severus is best acquainted with the problem at hand. This is why I asked him to join us," Dumbledore said softly, hiding a sharp edge in the blanket of his politeness. Then he turned to Snape: "Cornelius has come to Hogwarts to acknowledge the fact that Voldemort has risen again, and give as well as receive counsel about what we should do next."

Snape bit his tongue and merely nodded; it wouldn't do to blurt out that if Fudge had faced the facts about fifteen months ago, many deaths and much damage might have been prevented. 

"Horrible as it is, it seems that the magical public is terrorised by attacks of Death Eaters," Fudge said as if he was announcing something new. "At troubled times like these, we will have to stick together and help each other. This is why I am here."

Snape could hardly believe it – was Fudge finally coming to his senses? He and Dumbledore shared a look. "Azkaban," Snape mouthed noiselessly and with a minimum of lip movement. Dumbledore lowered his eyelids in place of a nod. Snape looked over to Fudge, unsure of how to break the issue to him. However, he needn't have worried – Fudge came to the point straight away.

"Albus insists that the Death Eaters imprisoned in Azkaban pose a threat, as do the Dementors working as Azkaban prison wards. He believes that the Dementors should be released from their job, and that certain prisoners should be kept safe elsewhere. I do admit that this solution seems a bit drastic to me, if not to say impracticable; the magical public would not be happy with such a course of action. However, Albus tells me that one of his main concerns is the prisoner Dolores Lestrange; he believes the Death Eaters might attempt to free her. He also tells me that you have been meeting with her, Severus. While I do not approve of such things, especially if they are done behind my back, I would still like to hear from you in what condition you find Dolores Lestrange, and what you believe we should do with her."

Snape exhaled deeply and then inhaled very, very slowly to keep his pulse from speeding up. "I have indeed met her, and I believe her to be what the Muggles call a ticking bomb," he said as calmly as he could. It was essential that he convinced Fudge of his belief now. He might never get another chance. "Dolores Lestrange was once the leader of the Death Eaters; the Dark Lord trusted her above anyone else." Convincing Fudge was so essential, indeed, that Snape even took care to spare his feelings by avoiding the name 'Voldemort.' "I believe that she holds crucial information about the immortality of the Dark Lord, even though this information is presently inaccessible to us due to a self-inflicted memory charm. Because of this, she is not only important to the Dark Lord, but also a potential threat. I wonder indeed why he has not overrun the prison of Azkaban to free her and others yet, but I believe he will do so as soon as he can."

Fudge sighed in response, as if Snape had been reporting of a nuisance, not of a major threat. "It is sad, indeed, that the descendant of such a noble family has come to such a scandalous end," he said, referring to Dolores Lestrange. "What would you have me do about her, then?"

Dumbledore and Snape exchanged glances. The obvious solution to the problem was to imprison her at Hogwarts, though it was a solution that Snape greatly feared. This fear did not arise from an increased threat of attacks – Voldemort's desire to overrun Hogwarts was probably already as large as it could be, so it could hardly increase much. Neither did Snape believe the prisoner would be able to attack teachers or students; she was only a shade of her former self, and there were a number of spells that could be used to keep her in check. No, what Snape feared most, though he would have never openly admitted it, was himself. He could see in Dumbledore's eyes that the headmaster knew this; he could see the question in his eyes, so he nodded almost imperceptibly. It would be alright, he would be able to cope – he was no longer nineteen, Snape believed, or rather, he hoped.

"Give her to us, we will keep her safe here," Dumbledore said to Fudge.

"This is outrageous, Albus, almost as outrageous as removing the Dementors from the prison," Fudge blubbered. "The press would tear me to pieces. I would have to deal with a never-ending pile of Dementor bureaucracy. You do not simply remove a high-security prisoner and _give her to someone, you know, Albus."_

"While I acknowledge your well-justified dread of Dementor bureaucracy, I do wish to remind you that it is all our lives and safety which are at stake here, Cornelius," Dumbledore replied gently. For all his physical vulnerability, the spirit of the old headmaster had not lost its steely edge, Snape realised with pride.

Fudge sighed. "I will do my best, I will certainly try. But, Albus – and I must ask you to excuse this, Snape – Albus, there are things you will have to do for me in return."

For some reason, Snape felt his hair stand on end. He lowered his head so it would not show. "Which things, Cornelius?" he heard Dumbledore ask.

Fudge sighed. "As you know, Albus, we are living in difficult times. People are afraid – _parents are afraid. They are concerned by the threat of You-Know-Who, by the deaths that occurred. Now they worry about their children. Again and again I get owls from parents asking me why I permit teachers at Hogwarts who some parents do not consider completely trustworthy."_

It took Snape only a fraction of a second to understand. Fudge was proposing Dumbledore a deal which he, Snape, would have to fulfil. In exchange for the safety of Dolores Lestrange, he was asked to vacate his post, to leave Hogwarts.

"Cornelius, please remember that this has always been the case," Dumbledore replied meekly. "There hasn't been a week during the last twenty years when I have not been asked to step down by some parent or school governor; the same goes for most of the teachers of Hogwarts. None of us is universally popular. If you are talking about being trustworthy, however, I can assure you, and you can assure the press and the public, that all the teachers of this school are entirely loyal to me in their opposition towards Lord Voldemort."

Fudge flinched. "Please, Albus," he almost whined in response to the uttered name. "I am not questioning the loyalty of your followers. I am only trying to run the ministry in very difficult times. As I said, parents worry – they remember the past, and they draw their conclusions from it." He made a point of not looking at Snape. 

"Severus Snape spied on the enemy, as you well know," Dumbledore replied, coming to the point which Fudge was avoiding. "He is no more a Death Eater than me or you, and I trust him. He will not betray us, I assure you." With a surge of relief, Snape saw that the headmaster was angry. For a second, he had feared that Dumbledore had already agreed to the deal Fudge was proposing, and had invited Snape to his office to break the news less than gently. In his case, Snape might have done so – they so desperately needed to keep Dolores Lestrange safe! 

"I believe you, Albus," Fudge said unhappily, "but please think of the bad press we might harvest! When I say that parents are worried, I am not only thinking of betrayal. Please do not take this personally, Professor Snape – I personally believe in your absolute integrity. But you do understand that parents, especially the parents of _girls –" _

He did not finish his sentence, leaving Snape to infer its meaning from the context. And oh, his anger was _colossal! He would not do Fudge the favour of relieving him from his task of spelling things out. "No, I do not understand," he said, which was a blatant lie. "Please tell me, Minister, what __about me and the parents of girls?"_

Fudge was visibly ill at ease, but not half as ill as ease as Snape wished him to be. "Well, considering your past, you know, _what they do_, parents might believe – might fear –"

A sudden weariness overcame Snape; he did not want to play these power games any longer. "If you think I am not safe because as a former Death Eater I am raping my female students, or rather, that after teaching at this school for sixteen years, I have suddenly _become unsafe, returned to old raping habits, so to say, just because Lord Voldemort has risen again, why don't you spell it out, Minister?"_

Fudge managed to blush and to cast his eyes down on the shiny surface of Dumbledore's desk. "I am thinking no such thing, Professor Snape, but I'm sure you will understand – parents do worry about these things. But as a matter of fact, they are not only worried about you. Currently, I hear a lot of rumours about this school, and I do admit that I am less than pleased. There is that half-giant, of course – I have received a number of owls regarding him. Then there is your Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher – I know it sounds preposterous, but people say –" his voice fell to a whisper, "people say she is the daughter of the enemy." He raised his eyebrows, waiting for denials, which never came.

"You will not believe what people say about this school," Fudge said with a little, false laugh. "They believe you are harbouring fugitives, a whole _camp_ of League members, that werewolf that used to teach here, a murderous hippogriff and even – can you believe it? – Sirius Black."

Fudge looked up at Dumbledore. The headmaster held his gaze until Fudge lowered his. "How can you let our honourable school become such a – den?" the Minister asked mournfully. "How can I cooperate with you if you break all our laws? Even you are not a law unto yourself. You may have been head of this school for a long time, but you are not above the law, Dumbledore."

"What will we do if Hogwarts falls?" Dumbledore asked. "What will you do, what will all your whining parents do, Cornelius? Yes, it may be true – maybe I am harbouring some of the people you mentioned. If this is the case, it is because I believe them to be completely trustworthy, and because they are working for the safety of this school. You may be aware that the enemy craves to destroy this place, with or without the fugitives, with or without me. I, and maybe some of the people you mentioned, are working hard to prevent this. We do what we can to protect this school. If you replaced me with someone more to your liking, are you sure he or she would be able to do the same?"

Fudge had paled. "I do not want to replace you, Dumbledore," he replied hastily. "Goodness knows that we need you. All I am asking is that you _cleanse_ this school of all those who should not be here, fugitives as well as some of those you made teachers. If you do this, we can cooperate in our fight against the supporters of You-Know-Who. I will even be able to do what you wish in a few matters, for example regarding Dolores Lestrange."

"Of course, the parents would not mind at all to have _her_ stashed away at Hogwarts," Snape murmured under his breath. He could not believe he was witnessing this conversation. Not only did Fudge prove to be even more contemptible than Snape had so far thought him. No, this was about him, about Snape's future. What would he do if he lost his post as a teacher? Where could he go, what would he do with his life? Where could he hide from the supporters of Voldemort? 'Cleanse' the school of him would mean little less than a death sentence to him, and he was sure that Fudge knew this. Others might not fare quite as badly, but not exactly well either: Hagrid might be safe if he hid among the giants (if his overlarge relative did not accidentally step on him); Valerie could probably go back to New York, but what about Black, for example? As much as Snape hated him, handing him over to Fudge was against the honour of the school. Last but not least, where else would all the League members and their children hide?

"Please, be sensible, Dumbledore," Fudge said, casting an apologising look at Snape. "We need to cooperate, you said it yourself. If you do your side of the deal, I will do what you asked me to do – I will establish contact with the Committee of Non-human Magical Creatures, as you suggested, I will draw up a supervision table for the Dementor guards of Azkaban, and I will suggest talks with members of the notorious League, if you insist."

"All these are very good ideas of which I approve, as you know," Dumbledore said quietly, "but I would like to remind you, Cornelius, that we have not struck a deal yet, so there can be no question of fulfilling my side of it. All my work here at Hogwarts is directed at two aims – to make this school worthy of its old and great name, and to fight Voldemort. While the first task is mine to supervise, the second is not – it is a task for all of us. As the Minister of Magic, you should see fighting Voldemort as your special task, instead of pretending that by doing your duty as the elected head of Britain's magical community, you are doing me a personal favour for which I owe you. I do not, I assure you: All I am doing at this school is protecting the enemies of our common enemy, facilitating communication between those who have to combine their efforts to fight Voldemort, and protecting this school against Voldemort's imminent threat. I warn you not to interfere with the tasks I have set for myself, Cornelius – you would regret it, and in the end, all of us would."

In spite of Dumbledore's calm and quiet voice, Snape felt a shiver run down his spine. It seemed that even though the headmaster generally acknowledged Fudge as the Minister, the power to lead, the power to command and even the power to punish rested with Dumbledore, not with Fudge. Kind as the ancient wizard was, his aura of power promised not only protection, but contained a threat at the same time; having Dumbledore for an enemy must be terrible indeed. While Fudge spluttered a semi-apologetical, but after all meaningless sequence of words, Snape's thoughts escaped his control and strayed to Dumbledore's son, to Evnissyen, a traitor who let Snape's own past pale in comparison. If those two, if father and son were ever to meet again – always supposing that Evnissyen was still alive – would Dumbledore raise his wand and punish his son with the same calmness he was using now to reduce Fudge to his position?

"You should have done these things more than a year ago when their necessity became obvious, Cornelius," the headmaster said in a passionless voice. "You should have lent me your support, instead of hiding behind your office like a coward who is more afraid of losing his position than of leading the world into an abyss. Now that you are finally acknowledging the writing on the wall, you are trying to blackmail me, it seems. Again, your priority is not saving as many people – magical and non-magical – as you can, but rather, preserving your professional reputation for the brief period of time where such things will still matter. I am warning you, Fudge: Whoever is walking through this country with both eyes open is no longer your follower. You may be the Minister, but one day you will find yourself the leader of the cowards and the near-sighted only. Your office will become utterly meaningless soon if you do not cooperate with me."

"It is you who refuses cooperation," Fudge replied in a choked voice. "You want me to submit to your dominance, to serve you."

"I want you to do what is right," Dumbledore answered. "I want to fight Voldemort, and I protect all those who I deem worthy and in need of my protection. They will fight alongside with me, and like me, they have personal reasons to bring down Voldemort for good this time. I do not believe they will ever betray me, and I will certainly not betray their trust by throwing them out into danger just because _you tell me so."_

Snape felt almost sick with relief and gratitude. He suppressed the urge to sink down onto his knees and thank the headmaster: He would not be relieved off his post, then – a disputable decision of Dumbledore's, given the fact that there appeared to be parents about worrying whether as a former Death Eater he was abusing their daughters. Snape promised himself that he would thank Dumbledore by toeing the line from now on; never again would he permit his temper to trouble the old headmaster, whatever happened, even if docile obedience killed him. The walls of this castle, which once had seemed like the walls of his personal prison, were now the walls of his sanctuary. Dumbledore would let him stay here.

"I advise you to take another look at me and my motives before you accuse me of seeking dominance," Dumbledore told Fudge quietly. "Power and leadership are nothing to me; neither is social status. Look at me; I am old and weary, and for whatever days are still ahead of me, I have little left to gain – except maybe the certainty that I have done my utmost to correct my old mistakes, that this time, I have not failed the people and the world I love. Remember that twenty years ago, the Ministry decided that Hogwarts must not be a sanctuary for those in need of protection. I bent this rule a few times by taking on somebody as teacher." His eyes strayed to Snape, who did his utmost not to blush. Dumbledore continued:

"I have thought over this old decision many, many times. Last year, I spent many sleepless nights turning it over and over in my head. Once I agreed with it: Our children, our future must not be endangered any more than they already are. Now I think that this decision was just plainly wrong. Whatever risk all my refugees mean to my students, we all have to take it, because victory can only be achieved if we are united. Look at the lives lost last time you advised me against taking on refugees. Now tell me again you will tie your willingness to take adequate measures against Voldemort to my willingness to cast out those whose lives depend on this hiding place. Will you not change your mind, Cornelius, and consent to work with me without demanding the impossible of me?"

At least, Fudge had the decency of staring down at his brightly polished shoes, Snape thought. The lives lost last time – Dumbledore was not only talking about the Potters, who had been hidden by the Fidelius charm instead of finding shelter at Hogwarts: He was also talking about his own family. In spite of Evnissyen's treachery, the Death Eaters would have never been able to get to them had they been sheltered inside the castle.

Snape tried to ban Evnissyen's face from his thoughts, but failed. These last few weeks he had been haunted by Dumbledore's remark that he might forgive his son if Evnissyen asked for forgiveness. It went beyond Snape's comprehension. How could anyone even contemplate forgiving such a deed? How could Dumbledore rise each morning and do his work, do it better than anyone else, how could he still be kind, gentle, even forgiving if such infinite sorrow lived on in him? How, Snape wondered, could it be that this sorrow had never turned into hatred, into that destructible emotion which wanted nothing but to hurt everyone and everything, the emotion which Snape himself knew so well?

Of course, nobody could experience such sorrow and remain unscathed: For a few years, Dumbledore had been a mere shadow of himself, had failed some of his students who had consequently followed their affinity to the Dark Side (Snape, for example) and had failed some of his friends, who had consequently died (the Potters, for example). Snape was sure that on top of everything else, the headmaster was blaming himself for these mistakes. Never, however, had Dumbledore let his grief turn into bitterness, never had he entirely given up, never had he been anything but a shield and a support to his friends and followers. Infinitely shamed by comparison, Snape still could feel nothing but admiration for the headmaster.

Dumbledore never talked about the loss of his entire family, but of course, the twenty years that had passed since that night of horror could not have brought healing to a wound so deep: His son had lead his fellow Death Eaters to take Dumbledore hostage and had failed. In his father's absence, Evnissyen had taken revenge on his own mother, his two sisters, his brothers-in-law and his nieces and nephews, toddlers who would be grown witches and wizards today if they had survived that night. Snape shuddered and re-directed his attention to the conversation between Fudge and Dumbledore, because some thoughts were just too horrible to keep them in the brain for too long.

"I do not want you as an enemy, Albus," Fudge said at last, displaying at least a shred of intelligence, Snape thought. "I believe that cooperation between the two of us is crucial, and I would certainly welcome you as my advisor again. However, please remember that I cannot permit you to run this school however you please."

"You can have my advice, and my support, whenever you need it, Cornelius," Dumbledore replied calmly. "But please remember that when it comes down to it, I do not need your permission to run this school." 


	10. Varlerta

10 – Varlerta 

Imagine you're an upstart.

Imagine you come from the junkyard of life, where you learn that your life is an accident nobody values, where childhood is not an asset, but a defect. Imagine you are then suddenly and unexpectedly lifted into a kind of elitist society which accepts you as one of their own – _almost_ as one of their own. Imagine you find yourself with powers which you've never dreamt of – no, let me correct myself, maybe they were rather the powers you always dreamt of, the powers most powerless dream of: to achieve the admirable, to gain respect, to manipulate people, to rule them. Imagine you gradually realise you are more powerful than almost everyone you know; you find yourself equipped to rule both cultures that formed you. Probably, you despise both worlds for being so hard on you when you were weak, and for welcoming you with open arms now that you prove to be strong. Just between the two of us: In that kind of a situation, wouldn't you consider world domination as an option?

Now imagine that once you prove yourself capable, the elitist society offers you a cosy job and respect. I did a bit of research, and it seems after Riddle left Hogwarts with outstanding NEWTs, they offered him a nice little post at the Ministry. He declined. He had better things to do. He was an upstart, after all.

An upstart means, no family background, no family money. You may get rich, successful, even powerful, but you'll always be an upstart. Of course, you find you come from an immensely powerful line of wizards, an ancient name even if it's cursed, but unfortunately that's on your mother's side, the side that _doesn't count_. Of course, if you dominate the world, your lineage or lack thereof won't matter anymore, but it's a long, stony way to world domination, even for one so powerful as you. Maybe you're undecided, maybe you want to taste the comfortable life right now, not after years of strife. Maybe you decide if you can't show off any great lineage, you will be your own great lineage, the root of the family just as well as its fruit. So you marry money. You marry lineage. You marry a pretty and admired girl half your age, a girl that isn't supposed to marry, not you, not anyone. You marry Rose Rosier.

The Rosier family isn't just one of the eldest and richest and most powerful in the country. They are legendary, they are old stock, maybe only because they are the last family which has retained an ancient tradition much older than the magical society we know: they are matrilineal, that is, the head of their family is female. 

In ancient times, witches didn't marry in the sense we know, and neither did Muggle women, I suppose. They took mates, men who might or might not take up permanent residence with them. The women kept the family together, had their children, and if the fathers of the children had anything to contribute besides their, eh, genes, so much the better. The oldest woman of the clan ruled, because she was considered the wisest. Her daughter, or younger sister, or whoever, took her place and her name when she died – a family name like the name Rosier, which is supposed to be very, very old.

Then the Celts came along, and the Romans afterwards, and _bang_, Britain was patrilineal. Women now left their families to move in with their husbands' families; they took their husbands' names and accepted their rules. The head of the family was male; women weren't supposed to bear children unless they were their husbands'. Things changed; some say for the better, some say for the worse. Wizards and witches changed along with the Muggles. It seems the magical population of Britain wasn't overly fond of the Romans, but not powerful enough to blast them away, so instead of wearing themselves out in a big struggle, they adapted. Of course, I am grossly simplifying matters here, but then again, all history is editing facts.

The Rosier family couldn't very well ignore all the changes, but obviously they did not want to embrace the new order, either. They opted for a compromise: The eldest son of each generation married; formally, his children were the heirs of the Rosier wealth and power. Younger sisters were married off and took on the names of their husbands; younger brothers usually stayed with the family, if they couldn't marry an heiress somewhere else. The whole family stayed together in the Rosier mansion, lived off the family fortune and strove to increase it. So far, they functioned as any other family in Britain which had any wealth to share. However, the head of the Rosiers was still a woman, whose task was to rule the family to the benefit of everyone. This place was traditionally reserved for the eldest daughter of a generation, who remained unmarried and thus retained the name Rosier just as a certain impartiality due to the fact that she had no children of her own – in short, her task was that of the family matriarch. This system sounds a bit complicated, but it seems that it worked to everybody's satisfaction. Unlike in other feudalistic and usually magic families in the medieval times, there seems to be no such thing as Rosiers killing their relatives over matters of inheritance. All in all, they seemed to have lived comparatively peaceful. – Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they were angels. They were feudal lords and ladies. They exploited their Muggles. They continually strove to increase their wealth at the expense of others. But for all it is worth, they got along with each other for countless centuries. Until _he_ came along, that is.

As the eldest daughter of Evanus and Theresa Rosier, Rose was not supposed to marry; she was supposed to take the place of the matriarch, to be the successor of Evanus' eldest sister, Anat Rosier. Even proposing for Rose was an audacity, but that does not seem to have intimidated Riddle. Maybe he didn't want to wait for her younger sister, Dolores, who was fourteen at the time Riddle married Rose. More likely still, Riddle wanted Rose precisely _because_ he wasn't supposed to have her: She was supposed to rule the family; rather than having to obey an older sister-in-law, he probably hoped to rule in her stead once Anat had passed away. Maybe he wanted to prove to all of magical Britain that he could marry whoever he chose to marry, and to hell with millennium-old traditions. I am unwilling to consider the option that he was in love with her – to consider the option that he loved anyone at all, however briefly; but maybe Riddle wanted Rose just because she probably was the most beautiful being the Rosier family has ever brought forward. Be that as it may, he wanted her, and he got her. How he persuaded old Anat to permit it is beyond my comprehension. My parents were married on February seventh, Nineteen-sixty, in the ceremony hall near Bryn Celli Ddu on Anglesey, which is about two miles away from the Rosier mansion and borders on Rosier land. That's probably why he was allowed to marry her there, because as far as I heard, the ceremony masters are insufferably picky about who gets married in that place.

I would have liked to know what my mother was like, what she was really like, _before_ Riddle controlled her, that is. It seems to me she can't have been devoted to him the way her younger siblings were from the start – Evan and Dolores. If she had adored him, why keep her under an Imperious curse for more than sixteen years? I'd like to think that she fought him, that she saw through his schemes soon after their wedding, but I suppose I'll never know. All the people who could tell me are either dead, or they are not exactly trustworthy.

As it was, my mother wasn't much of a presence in my life. Of course, she was always there physically; she wasn't mad, either, because she seemed to function. Only her character always seemed to be slightly – transparent, as if it was only a ghost of a character, as if she wasn't really there. Riddle wasn't around either; as I heard later, not long after I was born, scarcely ten months after their wedding night, he made himself scarce. He spent the next ten years becoming seriously evil, gathering followers and becoming immortal in some unknown but doubtlessly immoral way. I, of course, didn't know much about it, because I was too busy – first with crapping my pants, I suppose, later with learning to play the lute. Great-aunt Anat taught me, just as she taught me almost everything I knew until the day I started at Hogwarts. 

I had a bit of a freak childhood, I suppose. My mother wasn't really available to me, for which I punished her, unjustly, by not loving her. Anat was a wonderful parent, wise, understanding, but strict at need; however, she was an insufferable snob. I never went to any kind of elementary school or played with the children from the nearby villages, because she considered that beneath me. On the other hand, she found it completely fitting to teach me some defence magic – well, more than defence – which may not have been quite adequate in the hands of a child my age, I admit in retrospective. Thus equipped, I roamed rather freely on beautiful Anglesey, permitted to go where I pleased on the condition that I did not leave the island and that I made sure I remained unnoticed by Muggles. I was alone, pampered, occasionally taken to meet a few centaurs – the Rosiers always had a bond with the centaurs – much more rarely taken to meet a few adult witches and wizards, hardly ever introduced to other children. No wonder I was completely shell-shocked when I came to Hogwarts at last, not to mention a brat, but that is another story. 

Anat made sure that the two Riddle supporters in the family, Dolores and Evan, stayed away from me. She also made _him_ stay away, even though this sounds highly improbable. What's the point in being the meanest, the most evil wizard in the world if you're afraid of your in-laws? Of course, imagining her as a kind old woman would not do her any justice; she was not only quite powerful, but also very skilled in magic that can only be called Dark Arts, some of which she taught me, I admit – arts even Riddle may have feared back then. Be that as it may, he never came back to the Rosier mansion as far as I know, and great-aunt Anat made sure he wasn't mentioned over supper. I suppose I knew I had to have some kind of biological father, but at first it wasn't an issue. When I was eight or nine, Dolores told me about him; she said it was my fault that he went away because I wasn't a boy. By that time she was already married to the husband of Riddle's choice, nasty uncle Charles, and probably depressed because she wasn't married to Riddle himself. I suppose she only wanted to take it out on me by telling me some kind of bullshit. Be that as it may, back then I decided that I didn't like my unknown father. I never changed my mind afterwards.

When I was eleven, great-aunt Anat gave me one of the greatest heirlooms of the family: The Rosier lute, crafted by centaurs, embellished with the family symbol, and utterly magical. I felt honoured beyond words and promised myself and Anat that I would be a musician worthy of such a treasure. When summer came, I was sent to Hogwarts. At first it was hell, but it got better after a while. I had two great teachers, neither of whom were on the Hogwarts payroll: Lady Lido, my centaur lute teacher, and Verus, master of discipline and an organised mind. I dodged and hid in the forest. I played my lute. I returned to the Rosier mansion during the summer and Christmas holidays twice. I fell in love with Verus. I finally started to learn a few things. I started to feel almost comfortable. Then, in the autumn of Nineteen-seventy-five, I got a letter from uncle Evan saying that great-aunt Anat had died, and that I was to be transferred to another school. I wanted to run away, but I was too bewildered and too grief-stricken to trust anyone with a call for help. When Evan came for me, I fought. He broke my lute. I was held at Rosier mansion for a while, this time a prisoner rather than a pampered daughter. Evan and Dolores tried a bit of preaching, hoping to turn me into a supporter of Voldemort, as he was called now. I didn't want to be his follower. If my father was so great, why did he pull me out of the school my great-aunt had sent me to, I inquired. Why didn't he take care of my mother, who by that time was obviously sick? They didn't spend much energy on convincing me, perhaps expecting me to change my mind in due time. To help matters a bit, they sent me to Durmstrang come January.

I only have one word for that school, but I won't utter it because it would not be suitable for the young. Morgana's rear end, I had thought Hogwarts was bad! I tried to run away; I tried to write to Verus, even to my family, but I was not permitted any contact with the world outside. I was not even sent home during the holidays. When after nineteen months, I got a family-crested owl telling me to come to the deathbed of my mother back at the Rosier mansion, I went there, rather because it was for once a chance to get away than because I really cared about my mother.

I remember arriving at the mansion that night, a stormy summer evening adorned with ink-black clouds. The grounds with their formal gardens, the great house itself felt alien; it was darkish, almost empty and deadly quiet. The house-elves spoke in whispers to me and ushered me to the bed where my mother, pale and weak, was propped up on many pillows. I sat beside her, feeling nothing at first, wondering if I could get a decent supper for once, if I remember correctly. When she finally opened her eyes, I saw that she had trouble focusing them; nevertheless, she seemed more present, more alert than I had ever seen her. She spoke breathlessly with a broken voice; every once in a while it seemed she would drift off again, but she was able to tell me what she had on her mind before she died. 

My mother told me that my father had put her under an Imperius curse – one of the kind that controls not every movement you make, but rather replaces your willpower with something else. She said she had not been herself since I was born, that she hadn't been able to be a proper mother to me, but implored me to listen to her now, to believe her. All the while I had the impression that talking to me caused her great pain, that she was fighting the curse even then, and that it was killing her. I urged her to be quiet, but she would not hear of it, saying she might never manage to speak to me again if she did not speak now. She warned me of my father, told me that he was a liar and a murderer, who had made her poison her own aunt, Anat, almost two years ago, and who had my aunt and uncle at his beck and call. She asked me to run away, to save myself from him, and to refuse to be his follower. I promised her I would; holding her hands, I swore that I would take revenge and do what I could to bring down Lord Voldemort. She whispered that my ancestors would have been proud of me; then she went into a sort of spasm and died a few minutes afterwards.

I sat beside her bed until the weeping of the house-elves told me I had little time to lose. After rummaging through Evan's desk and taking a sack full of Galleons, I took off on a broomstick – not my favourite means of transport, but somehow I made it to London in one piece. I rented a little room in a Muggle area, trying to be inconspicuous. I tried to forge myself a few documents, but was fortunately smart enough to realise I needed the help of one of professional forgers of Knockturn Alley. I took on the name Ellis Cawldon, made myself a few years older, and wrote myself a fake Hogwarts document attributing to me ridiculously outstanding NEWTs marks. I enrolled in Auror's college, deciding that it would be the best way to start fighting Voldemort – the only way that I could spontaneously think of, that is. For once in my life, I wanted to succeed at a school, so I made sure I toed the line. Even though I found it hard at times, I did my best to obey my teachers and superiors. I studied at night and managed to get tolerable marks. Rather frequently I thought of Verus, who, among other things, had taught me to think and study systematically a few years ago. I wondered whether I should try to get in touch, knowing he must have left Hogwarts by that time, but was not sure whether my many secrets would be safe with the self-righteous prick he could be at times, so I never did. When I ran into him during one of my first proper raids as an Auror trainee, there wasn't really any decision to make. I let him go, and when my former colleagues questioned me, I did not betray him, hoping he would exonerate me in turn. He never came; things got a bit nasty, so I decided to get out while I could. Fortunately, or maybe on the whole not so fortunately, the security system of the Aurors is inferior even to that of Durmstrang; I was able to trick it and took off. Expecting persecution from my relatives rather than my fellow Aurors, I had a document for yet another fake identity, a Muggle passport, along with some Muggle money, hidden for emergencies in a bewitched locker at the train station. After I had managed to retrieve these things, I took the train to the airport and went out on the first flight overseas. It went to New York, which suited me fine. I felt betrayed by my family, by the people with whom I was supposed to fight Lord Voldemort, by the only person I still considered my friend. Even on the plane, I banned all thoughts of Britain from my mind, deciding I had left it behind for good. I would look after myself from now on, or so I thought.

I decided I would leave magic behind for good and once more dedicate my life to music. I got a job as a barmaid in a rock club, shared a room in a less than comfortable apartment, bought an electric guitar and started practicing again. Why an electric guitar? I am not sure. I wanted to become someone as remote from the awkward witch girl I had once been as I possibly could, someone stylish and cool; a lute seemed so horribly old-fashioned. 

I played in a couple of bands, at first pretty horrible ones, then found better ones as my playing improved. I made a few extra bucks with a bit of guitar teaching, with accompanying a truly obnoxious comedian, and then, oh, the sweetness, the glory of it, with gigs. Finally I had a band that looked like it could make it. We wanted to be famous, so we worked hard, and the singer knew someone who knew someone – and one day we had a small sub label of a major label interested in signing us. I thought good fortune had finally come my way, yes, so I thought.

This was Nineteen-eighty-one, coincidentally a few months before the first fall of Voldemort, but I could not know that. What I knew was that they were still searching for me in Great Britain. What I knew was that the new fad, music video, would broadcast my face there once I became famous. I could have gotten plastic surgery, or pretended to be a female version of King Diamond, a woman hiding her face between tons of white and red make-up. Instead, I opted for panic. I told my bewildered band I had changed my mind about becoming famous and fled, vacating the place of the guitar player for an averagely talented dough-faced male. The band? No, I'd rather not relate their name to you, although you have probably heard of them.

I fell into a bit of a psycho pit after that. Maybe I had unconsciously decided if I could be neither a witch nor a rock star, I would be nothing at all. Maybe I can blame it on a succession of guys who were all bad news. Maybe the rediscovery of my magic, of the fact that I could manipulate people and at times even help myself to certain possessions of theirs, did not do me overly good. On the pretext of enjoying myself, I fell into a trap called substance abuse. Well, I'd rather not go into this chapter of my life too deeply, except for saying that I learned that certain things are _just not good for you_.

One day, I was roaming Manhattan by myself, once again broke, out of a band, a guy and a job, half-heartedly looking for a place to stay as my landlady had given me one week's notice due to my failure to pay the rent. I suppose I was slightly intoxicated and therefore deluding myself to the extent that all these misfortunes meant nothing to me, that after all I was young and invincible. I am sure that underneath the pretence, I was deeply unhappy but too preoccupied to notice. Be that as it may, in the street I saw a man with the look of a South American _campesino_, selling beady costume jewellery, alpaca wool sweaters and little clay pendants which turned out to be ocarinas once I took a closer look. I counted my last couple of dollars, which amounted to a little less than the price indicated on a cardboard sign. Determined that nevertheless I would buy myself such an ocarina, a pear-shaped clay flute, just for fun, I tried to bargain down the price. The _campesino_, oldish and even more scruffy than I probably was myself, was uncooperative at first. After I had tried to persuade him for a minute or so, he suddenly grabbed my hand and scrutinized my face in a way I found rather displeasing. I wanted to tell him off for imposing on me, but for some reason I never did.

"You have lost your way, little girl," he said in a heavily accented voice. Of course, I wanted to reply with a certain force that I had neither lost my way, nor was I a little girl, but again, I remained silent. 

"Don't be afraid – you will find your way again," the _campesino_ said kindly and pulled out an ocarina on a leather cord from underneath his own shirt. This little instrument was irregularly shaped, chipped and grubby, its cord worn; I would not have picked it up from the gutter had I found it there. He took it off his neck and pressed it in my hand. "You will find your way, and you will find yourself again," he repeated, then turned to another customer to serve her. I stood there, a bit confused and probably too far out of it to even thank him. I just walked off, putting the leather cord around my own neck. My rather aimless walk soon led me to a music store where I found a note taped to the wall, saying a rock band was looking for a guitar player. I took the note with me to a near phone box and called the number it gave with one of my last coins, still in my possession because the _campesino_ had not even asked for my money. A guy answered the phone, as it turned out the singer of the band. That's how I met Roary.

I came into their practice room the next day; we jammed for many hours, accumulating the material for what would later be almost three complete songs, and, what's more, songs I like even today. We completely lost track of time, causing the drummer to miss a date with a woman he really fancied. It was the kind of magic rehearsal from which you go home in an elated state, while for once all the happiness-inducing substances are supplied by your own body. I knew I wanted to play with them, and I was pretty sure I hadn't made a bad impression either. 

After the second rehearsal, another remarkable evening, Roary took me aside. My heart pounded. I could hardly have missed that he was the best-looking man in the world even then; I admit I had already developed a crush on him, which probably happens to most people who first meet him. When he said he wanted a private word, I suppose I was hoping he'd make a pass at me.

"I want you to play guitar with us, but I don't want a junkie in my band," he said rather blandly.

Of course I denied being a junkie quite hotly, but that did not deceive him in any way. "Either you come clean, and I mean now, or you can't come back," he said very seriously. It dawned on me that he meant it, and that he had no interest in me as a woman. I promised him I would indeed come clean, though I am not sure I meant it. 

I went home to my soon-to-be-vacated den, my guitar bag slung over one shoulder, my mood as low as it had been high after the rehearsal before. In my room I packed my few possession – some unwashed clothes, a few dog-eared books, a little money I had made by amusing the tourists with some vaguely magical tricks. I sat in front of a cracked Muggle mirror that would not even talk to me, but I could tell myself that my life was crap, and that I did not know what to do with it or where to go. The only thing I was sure of was that I really wanted to play in that band, and that the only way to achieve this end was to leave my way of life behind. I gathered up my bag and my guitar; in the door I turned around to leave most of my money behind on the table, a feeble attempt to mollify my aggrieved landlady. Then I left.

Admittedly, Roary was less than pleased when he found me on his doorstep. He told me rather unkindly that he did not want junkies in his apartment either, that he did not care where or even whether I came clean because obviously I was crazy on top of everything else to ring his doorbell in the middle of the night. After assuring me that he was gay and that he had no interest whatsoever in me as a woman, he told me I had blown all my chances of playing in a band with him by disturbing him in this fashion. 

I snapped my fingers to my forehead and whispered as softly as I could, "_apathó_", an old charm against tears which great-aunt Anat had once taught me so I would make it through school. Usually, not even witches or wizards notice this charm, but Roary knew straight away. His face fell; "you are a witch," he stated rather than asked.

I turned on my heels and tried to flee, but he grabbed my wrist and pulled me inside his apartment. Over three pots of tea, he extracted from me the story of my life, who I was and where I came from. I don't know why I told him all this, as I hadn't told anyone anything at all in years; maybe he was more persuasive than other people, or maybe I was just tired of running away from myself. It was, of course, entirely unwise to trust him, as I hardly knew him, but I was lucky: He never betrayed my trust, but helped me in many ways. After hearing my story, he decided I would move in with him after all; he was kind, even though distant, in the weeks that followed, weeks that weren't pleasant at all. 

I am not sure how I made it through that time, except that I had a friend, and a charm I believe to be lucky. This may be superstition, of course – I have never found any evidence that the _campesino's_ gift has any magical power whatsoever. Yet the day I got it, my life changed for the better, and since that day, I have never fallen into any kind of mental abyss or lost myself again. Rather than on substances that come in ugly little packages, I learned to rely on myself again; I played in Roary's band, I found a new job and a new apartment. I even got over the disappointment of finding that Roary had spoken the truth when he said he liked men. Having him as a friend was a much larger treasure than having most men as lovers, I decided, so I radically raised my standards regarding guys. I also mingled with witches and wizards again, as Roary would take me to some secret meeting places; I started to practice magic again and stopped seeing it as a way to cheat myself through life. All this helped. But in retrospective, I believe that the immense pleasure of truly playing music again, of playing in a great band, was maybe the strongest force that kept me out of trouble. If it wasn't such a despicably tacky expression, I would claim that rock n'roll saved my soul.

Roary could not ease my fears of being discovered, taken and maybe forced to serve Lord Voldemort, no matter where I hid in the world; rather, he confirmed them. He advised me to practice defence magic, got me in touch with a few people who could teach me things, and when I told him I would try to use music for purposes like Strengthening and Shielding, he did not laugh at me. As my research did not get me very far, I decided to travel, hoping to benefit from certain shamanic powers which were hinted at in a few ethnographic books. I was abroad for many months a few times, always sure that when I came back, Roary would have a place in some band ready for me. For a few years, our band mates, all of them Muggles, were replaced now and then, but when I came home from studying music magic in Mongolia, I found Pat, the bass player, in Roary's apartment. When I got to know Roary's Muggle lover better, I was truly pleased to see he had taken up permanent residency both in Roary's life and in our band. 

Years passed. I wrote songs and played gigs; I travelled in and out of the United States, yet never to Britain; I taught a few beginners' classes on defence magic at Northern Magic University; I bought and bewitched a motorcycle; I welcomed Aisha into our band, glad to have found a drummer I really wanted to stay. In the early summer of Nineteen-ninety-five, Roary told me that Voldemort had risen again – trust Roary to be the first in the country to know such a thing. We talked all night. Roary urged me to write Dumbledore and offer him my assistance. I was reluctant, expecting his distrust and fearing Aurors and Azkaban, but, once more, let Roary persuade me. The return letter I got was kind, full of trust, and concluded with the offer of a post at Hogwarts. Unwilling to take back my offer of going overseas, and remembering the oath once sworn to my mother, I accepted; I played a farewell concert with my band, packed my things and mounted my Flying Harley. You can imagine my surprise when I found the one friend of my childhood among the teachers of Hogwarts.

The rest is history. 


	11. Harry

11 – Harry 

Harry drew the hood of his cloak down almost to the tip of his nose, once again grateful that Madam Malkin had persuaded him to purchase a hooded model. The weather was just the way one would expect from the end of a Scottish October: It was rainy, drizzly, at times only foggy and damp, but then again, like on that particular morning, exceedingly showery; in short, it was very, very moist. Harry shivered as he walked along the path to Professor Varlerta's building together with the other students, supervised by the teacher herself. A sideways glance at Ron, however, told him that without his waterproof hood, he would probably feel much more miserable. Behind him, he could overhear Lavender complain to Parvati and Seamus: How in the world could Professor Varlerta schedule her defence practice outside on this particular day? Hermione, as always siding with the teacher, interrupted her classmates with the remark that when Varlerta had made plans for this lesson, she could not have known that it would be raining. Parvati just snorted, and Harry had to agree with her – these days it was _always raining, so the weather could hardly have come as a surprise to the teacher._

On the 'defence practice pitch', as Varlerta termed a patch of slightly scorched lawn kept a respectable distance from her building, Harry saw a wizard he did not know – tall, dark-skinned, probably in his late twenties or early thirties. He wore neither cloak nor robe, but rather trousers and a jumper which both looked padded; his black, quite curly but short-cropped hair stuck to his scalp with dampness, but he did not seem to care. Rather, his air was one of complete ease; he greeted the Gryffindor sixth years with a casual wave of his left hand. The right one, holding an impressively long wand, rested against his thigh, underlining the impression of relaxation and poise.

"Students, may I introduce to you Mr. Ambrose Curtis," Varlerta formally addressed her class, above her head an invisible device that kept her dry. "Like me, he is an expert in defence magic; unlike me, his speciality is one-to-one wanded combat, or duelling with a serious edge to it, if you like. He has consented to give you further training, training that Professor Dumbledore and I have decided you might need. I expect you all to show him your best behaviour, as he is a guest at this school, not a teacher whose job it is to maintain discipline among you. What Mr. Curtis has to teach you might prove highly useful, if not essential to you; please make sure you all benefit from his stay with us as well as you possibly can."

For this little speech, Curtis gave Varlerta a broad grin, displaying two rows of very even, very white teeth. "So you think without your little pep talk, I would not be able to master your students because they would make mincemeat out of me?" he asked good-naturedly. 

Varlerta blushed rather deeply. "I'm sorry, Ambrose, I –" she stopped in mid-sentence, probably conscious that any apology would only make matters worse for her. Then she grinned, too. "So be it, they are all yours," she said, and with an inviting wave of her hand, as well as with taking a backwards step, indicated that Curtis would take over. 

"Alright then," the dark-skinned wizard said and let his glance wander over the semi-circle of wet, shivering students. "Today, we will go through some preparation and maybe do a little proper duelling, as they politely call it at this all-too-peaceful school." Varlerta must have given him a warning look, because he quickly added: "Mind you, I certainly do not mean to glorify combat or violence; in fact, quite the opposite is the case. Just like your teacher," another glance at Varlerta, "I believe that violence can never be an acceptable means to any end. Violence reaps violence, and people get hurt, all too often because of something as meaningless and trivial as so-called glory. However, as you may all know, we are heading into difficult times, more difficult than they already are, we fear. As little as it is acceptable to teach you combat techniques as a means for your personal little power trips, it is not advisable to leave you unguarded against combat techniques an enemy might use against you. I am talking of the followers of Lord Voldemort, of course; my aim is to teach you self-defence in a wanded fight against Death Eaters."

Curtis' revelations, or maybe his frank use of names, were greeted with complete silence. Harry felt his throat go dry, and he wondered why. Yes, he had fought a basilisk and countless monsters in a labyrinth staged for such fights; he had Countered a curse against a faceless mass of Death Eaters, and most of all, he had fought Lord Voldemort in many forms. However, the idea of facing a Death Eater, a human opponent, with the intention of fighting against him, maybe even killing him, was another matter. His fellow Gryffindors, none of them as used to fighting as he was, seemed to be uncomfortable as well. He saw Ron shuffling his feet, while Hermione was clenching her wand so hard that her knuckles had turned white, and Neville, who seemed to have learned a lot about Defence Against the Dark Arts during the last year, had turned slightly green.

"If any of you now feel afraid and shun the thought of learning such things, I assure you that you are completely right," Varlerta said, looking at her students in turn quite seriously. "If you weren't afraid, it would mean you were foolishly and unrealistically self-assured; if you were enthusiastic about learning to harm others, it would make me seriously doubt your character. I am rather glad to see you are not happy about the things you hear. However, I personally prefer the thought of you harming or killing Death Eaters to the thought of Death Eaters killing you, and I believe you will agree with me so far. What I want you to learn is self-defence and nothing else – nothing to attack others who aren't attacking you, no large-scale combat magic, no curses – or hardly any at all," she added as an afterthought. 

Curtis made a face at her, but when he turned back to the students, he was serious again. "She is right, of course," he told them. "Never mind the fact that she talks like a Hufflepuff," he added with another wide grin.

The dark-skinned wizard asked the students to stand in two even rows, to keep their backs straight and to plant their feet firmly on the ground about a foot apart, holding their wands outstretched before them in their wand hand. In turn, he corrected their posture and their grip on their wands in a manner that strongly reminded Harry of his first few charms lessons; he also inquired the name of each student, telling them he would try to remember them. In the back row, Harry could watch him for a while before Curtis came to him. He felt a bit silly standing up straight and trying to look like nothing could overthrow him while in truth he felt he would be down with flu in a manner of minutes, but nevertheless he listened to all the things Curtis said to his fellow students. Seamus Finnigan was advised not to keep his knees too straight, but to retain a certain flexibility; Neville Curtis criticised for gripping his wand too hard, saying an enemy could see his nervousness just by looking at his hand. To Lavender, he said: "Don't just stand there like you are hoping for a shoulder to lean on. You look like a breeze could throw you over. Show some determination!" 

Straightening his back and keeping his knees relaxed, Harry watched Curtis approach Hermione. Instead of asking her name, however, he greeted her with it and said it was so nice to meet her again. Harry and Ron exchanged glances. Ron did not look overly pleased.

Curtis criticised a few minor things with Hermione's, Ron's and Harry's stances – Ron, he said, had a slight tendency to stoop a little, maybe because he was tying to escape the general wetness, while he told Harry he should try not to hold his breath when concentrating on his posture. Then he walked to the front of the group and addressed all of them again:

"Both feet firmly on the ground, your body straight, but relaxed, your breathing normal and in no way hurried or forced, your wand in front of you, gripped firmly but not too firmly in its lower third – that's how you want to stand while expecting an attack. A good stand, the support of the ground underneath, the feeling that energy can flow right from the ground into your centre, and from your centre through your arm into your wand – there's nothing like it to withstand a curse. Now, I suppose you will all have a question for me." He raised his thick, but evenly arched eyebrows in an expression of expectation. Of course, Hermione raised her hand.

"Miss Granger, please, go ahead," Curtis said pleasantly.

"You will probably expect us to ask about what kind of centre you mean, but that's not my question," she said a little breathlessly.

The ghost of a smile played around Curtis' dark lips. "What's your question, then?" he asked.

"If we are expecting an attack, why do we just stand there? Why don't we run away or go for cover somewhere?" she asked.

Harry heard Dean snort and Parvati giggle; Ron hissed "coward" out of the corner of his mouth at Hermione, then sneezed loudly. Varlerta, he could see, was hiding a grin behind her hand. Hermione blushed, but did not look down.

"Indeed, a very good question," Curtis replied nonplussed. "As a matter of fact, if you have a chance to go for cover, I would certainly advise you to do so. Many of us probably wouldn't mind being a hero, but I personally can see very little point in being a _dead_ hero. Sometimes, of course, you can't go for cover, because you're trapped, or because there's others you have to protect, or because – there's loads of reasons, as a matter of fact, and loads of situations where you might need just the stuff you will learn here. Is that good enough for you, Miss Granger?" 

"Sure," she said with a smile, obviously glad that he hadn't made fun of her.

"Now for that centre of you which I mentioned," Curtis continued, "this is a task I have for you, a kind of homework, if you will. I want you to find out, where in your body, as far as you feel it yourself, your magic strength resides. This is not a teacher's question where I will check whether you have done well or poorly on it; rather your skills at defence may be influenced by your willingness to take this task seriously. People do feel differently about this – some feel that magic resides in the head, some place it in their throat, some in their lungs and some – well, a bit deeper down, I suppose." There was humour in Curtis' eyes, but he did not elaborate. "What I want you to do is to try and find your centre, find it all for yourself, and then next week we will – what in Keranta's name is _that_?"

Curtis stared past them into the direction of the forest; he seemed displeased, almost shocked. Like other students, Harry turned to see what the wizard was looking at. He smiled and stretched out his hand to the newcomer. Trust that beast to look impressive even when wet – with his stringy, damp mane, glistening fur and ruffled feathers, the Thestral looked like the incarnation of a thunderstorm. He neighed gently and nuzzled Harry's fingers. Meanwhile, Lavender sighed longingly, while Parvati warned her to stay off: Harry's stray pet was still regarded as an obscure threat by most of his class mates.

"Haven't you seen him?" Varlerta asked Curtis. "He's been following Harry around since the beginning of the school year. Isn't he a handsome little horsie?"

"Harry Potter, of all people? Goodness, why does Dumbledore allow that thing to stay? It's like he was provoking fate," Curtis said in obvious dismay. It seemed he was not too eager to meet the 'handsome little horsie'. The Thestral, who seemed to be able to smell dislike at a distance, cast a sidelong glance at Curtis; for a fraction of a second, his ears flipped backwards. Then he continued rubbing his muddy nose on Harry's cheek, causing Hermione to offer Harry a self-cleaning handkerchief.

Varlerta shrugged in response to Curtis' questions, but asked Harry to send the Thestral off. Harry told the beast to go back into the forest, and for once the winged stallion obeyed, albeit with the slightly condescending air of a free creature doing Harry a favour. Shivering, the Gryffindor sixth years turned back to the dark-skinned wizard, expecting him to continue the lesson. However, Curtis seemed to have lost interest. "You better run up to your dormitory for dry clothes and some Pepperup Potion," he told them a bit abruptly and gave Varlerta a meaningful look. After a moment of hesitation, the teacher nodded assent and closed the lesson early, asking Curtis to come into her building for a little chat.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Mental he is, absolutely mental," Ron insisted while spell-drying his hair in the comfortably steamy atmosphere of the boys' shower room. Harry pulled last year's Weasley jumper over his dry t-shirt, feeling he needed a bit of extra warmth underneath his uniform robe. His wet clothes lay on the floor in a wrinkled heap; Harry kicked a damp stray sock into its general direction, then stooped to gather up the lot.

"Why? I mean, it was nice of him to let us change, right?"

Ron sneezed. "Bloody right you are," he said, rummaging through his pockets for a handkerchief. "Completely kind of him, to give us at least a slight chance to avoid death this time. Can't believe he let us practice out in the rain, and what's more, for no reason whatsoever. It's not like we did anything dangerous today which we couldn't have done in Varlerta's classroom."

"I do have the impression that Curtis stopped the lesson short when he saw the Thestral, so maybe he was going to have us do something dangerous afterwards," Harry said slowly. "I just wonder why the Thestral scared him so much. I mean, Curtis is supposed to be some kind of heroic He-Wizard, right?"

Ron only frowned in reply, whether because he did not get the joke, because he was still apprehensive about the Thestral himself, or because of a general dislike of Curtis, Harry did not know. Suddenly Harry thought Ron looked ill, so he offered to get him another prophylactic glass of Pepperup Potion. Ron declined monosyllabically, gathered up his stuff and indicated with a turn of his head that he was ready to leave the shower room. Harry nodded and led the way out and up into the empty dormitory, where both boys deposited their wet clothes in the laundry bin for the house-elves.

"Have you noticed how that – that _guy_ was looking at Hermione?" Ron asked. 

It took Harry a few moments to realise Ron was once more referring to Curtis. "Nope," he answered truthfully and bent down to tie the laces of his trainers. "Was he looking at her?"

"He _knew her," Ron hissed, probably induced to keep his voice down by the audible approach of Dean and Seamus. "He knew her name, and said it was nice to see her again, right? So, can you tell me __where they met?"_

Harry was at a loss for words. It was true, Curtis had uttered something to that extent, but to Harry it hadn't sounded remarkable in any way. Admittedly, he had no logical answer to Ron's question in store – as far as he knew, Curtis had never been to Hogwarts before, nor did he keep a shop in Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade; he did not seem to be a regular guest at the Burrow, and it was highly unlikely that he was a friend of Hermione's parents. However, Harry was pretty sure that it was none of his business, and as far as he was concerned, Curtis' acquaintance with his friend was not threatening in any way. Glad that Ron dropped the subject in the presence of Dean and Seamus, Harry said: "I'm really glad Herbology this afternoon is cancelled – I would hate to walk to the greenhouses in that kind of rain. And of course, given the choice between a class and a feast, I'd always choose the feast." Ron did not reply, but seemed slightly broody; idly, he picked a few threads from his robes. Eager to get Ron to talk of something else, something pleasant for a change, Harry added a bit awkwardly: "And then – then there's the Hogsmeade weekend coming up. Of course, the weather will probably be no better than today, but the butterbeer will help."

Ron looked down at his feet; Harry noticed the unbecoming holes in Ron's second pair of sneakers, the pair that wasn't soaked through. Hardly audible, Ron muttered: "It gives me the creeps to go."

Harry had to admit he had put his foot in it. Hogsmeade might just not be the best way to cheer Ron up at the moment. The last visit had been rather dreary. They had visited George at Zonko's, where he had started to work in September. Ron's elder brother had done his best to appear cheerful, had demonstrated some outrageous new inventions to a group of students, had laughed and joked as it was required of him at his place of employment, but even a blind person would have seen that his face was drawn with worry. Later he had accompanied Harry, Ron and Hermione to the house he had rented for Fred and himself, a small straw-covered half-timbered cottage. Politely, Hermione had complimented George for his choice of place, and Ron and Harry had hurried to agree: In itself, the place might have looked pleasant. As it was, a cloud of gloom seemed to hang above the cottage; the slightly messy rooms seemed lightless, and somehow the air smelled of sickness in an unidentifiable, but nevertheless persistent way. 

They had found Fred on an armchair next to the fireplace, two blankets drawn around his bony shoulders and still shivering in the stuffy, warm air. When he saw them, he distorted his emaciated face into a smile and said it was cool of them to come; he apologised to George for not doing the dishes and picking up the living room, as he had said he would. "No problem," George replied, his eyes averted, and took a laundry basket off a sofa so that Harry, Ron and Hermione could sit. Then he said he would make them some tea. Ron placed a large bag of recently acquired Honeyduke's sweets on the table, perhaps an attempt to help his brother play host to them. It was obvious that it was all too much for George – starting his first job and working for two, always promising that his brother would get well soon, and all the while caring for Fred and doing the housework. Molly Weasley, Harry knew, had offered her sons to move in with them and help where she could, but the twins had declined; neither had they accepted Angelina's offer that she'd come in to help now and then. Now Harry wondered whether that had been wise: If he had ever seen a household desperately in need of a house elf, a mother, or even a dedicated friend, it had to be this one. Fred, in the meantime, seemed listless and passive, obviously trying, but for some unknown reason too weak to even do the dishes. Both twins were pretending they could handle the situation, but did not fool Harry, Ron or Hermione. The three of them had left earlier than they had planned: Somehow real conversation would not pick up, and after a while, their strained small talk had become too much of an effort. For days, Ron's misery had shown at almost every minute; Harry could have kicked himself for thoughtlessly invoking his friend's worries at an inconvenient time like this.

"Let's go down to the common room," he finally suggested a bit helplessly, hoping that Ron might stop brooding in the presence of others. Without a word, Ron trotted to the door and down the stairs; Harry followed him.

"Well, I think he's kind of cute. He's got a good body, at any rate." Harry recognised Rhonda Celp's voice; her remark was answered by a buzz of giggles and agreeing noises. A few sixth and fifth year girls, it seemed, were slouched down on the sofa next to the door, practising 'girl talk', as the Gryffindor boys derisively called it. Ron stopped dead in his tracks and took a step backwards to the staircase, obviously unwilling to enter the common room. He turned to Harry, who stood, a little bewildered, on the bottom stair, but when Ron raised a finger to his lips, Harry did not disobey. Ron, it seemed, was planning to eavesdrop.

"It's not only how he looks, it's the way he moves – he's got that certain something, don't you think, Herm?" That was Parvati's voice, accompanied by a cloud of sighs. Hermione, who, if Harry wasn't mistaken, hated to be called 'Herm', took her sweet time in answering. Harry could practically feel the tension in Ron's shoulders, could sense his friend hold his breath.

"He's alright," Hermione finally replied briefly and vaguely. The other girls chuckled.

"Isn't he kind of, er, old?" Ginny asked tentatively, only to be deluged in female laughter, waves of giggles on which words like _pot_, _kettle and, well, __black, swam like corks. Harry knew that most people would not be able to work out Hermione's hint, but was still amazed by her sudden lack of safety concerns: Somehow the other girls seemed to know there was something to know about Ginny, which in Harry's opinion was already a bad sign._

"I don't think Curtis is too old. At least he's got experience," Parvati replied nonplussed.

"Indeed – experience with wanded combat," Hermione added soberly.

"Oh Herm, you have the dirtiest mind of all of us," Parvati retorted tartly, which resulted in increased hilarity on the sofa. Ron turned on his heels and fled up the stairs, almost knocking over Harry in the process. Harry followed his friend, who could just avoid bumping into Dean, Seamus and a bewildered second year boy.

"So what was that supposed to be?" Harry asked a little breathlessly back at the door to the sixth years boys' dormitory. Ron scowled and remained silent; he did not display any desire to discuss the conversation among the girls, or his own conduct. For about a minute, neither of them said a word; they just stood there.

"Okay, that's kind of silly, let's go back down," Harry finally urged. Ron did not reply or move. Harry grew impatient; "it's almost time to go to the feast," he added. Of course, he could have left without Ron, but did not really want to, as he did not see any reason why his friend should not come down to the common room with him. For one thing, they had not been caught eavesdropping, so there was no cause for Ron to be embarrassed. For another, it was Parvati who had been practically drooling over Curtis, not... Hermione.... Hermione....

"You're not jealous, are you?" Harry asked without thinking. What he had _meant to say was that he didn't think Hermione fancied the older, dark-skinned wizard, so there was no need for worry; however, he stopped short when he saw how even his first sentence had upset Ron. The red-haired, lanky boy stormed down the stairs again; once again, Harry followed, promising himself that this was the absolutely last time he would pass this particular staircase until he had properly devoured tonight's Halloween feast._

Hermione had obviously been waiting for them in the common room; Harry noticed she had rolled her hair into a tight bun and changed into a new robe in a black so bluish it almost, but not quite broke the school dress code. When she saw Ron and Harry, she started towards them, but was put off by the way in which Ron rapidly walked past without looking at her. Harry slowed down to fall into pace with her. Together, they took the staircase down towards the Great Hall.

"So what is wrong with him _now_?" Hermione asked without any effort to keep her voice down. Ron, Harry could see, was a couple of steps ahead of them, walking behind Parvati and Seamus, who were recently rumoured to be a couple.

A proper and truthful reply to Hermione's question would have been a breach of trust, so Harry said evasively: "I see you've managed to get yourself dry again after today's glorious combat lesson."

Hermione snorted, obviously seeing through his attempt to change the subject only too clearly. "You mean Ron is still wet behind his ears? Goodness, I was hoping he'd finally be entering puberty by now." 

Harry could not help laughing; the joke might not have been up to Hermione's usual standards, but perhaps laughing was a way to release some of the tension that had been building up within him. The two friends were still grinning and chuckling at each other when they saw Ron, waiting for them at the door to the Great Hall. He was white as snow and stared at them. Then, in a few seconds that felt like eons, he pulled his wand out of his pocket, pointed it at Harry's heart and hissed in a strange and alien voice: "_Avada Kedavra_!"

Harry saw something green shooting towards his chest; the impact felt like being hit by a Bludger. His knees must have given way, because he found himself on the floor in a position between crouched and sprawled, vomiting violently on Lavender's suede shoes. Nearby, people were screaming, their faces rotating around him like an eerie Merry-Go-Round; Seamus was asking whether he was alright. Harry wasn't sure whether to nod or to shake his head in reply to this question, until another wave of nausea and the resulting, unpleasant waste product answered for him.

Someone, Professor McGonagall, as it turned out, ordered the students to support Harry on all fours; within seconds, Madam Pomfrey was at his side, forcing a potion down his throat. Harry retched and choked, but managed to swallow the remedy. Soon, he could sit up again, dizzy, nauseous and wretched, but certainly not seriously hurt, let alone dead. When the world stopped spinning around him, he looked for his friends and saw Hermione sit next to a heap of clothes that had to be Ron. She was holding his hand in her right, while wiping her eyes with her left sleeve; softly and imploringly, she said Ron's name. Madam Pomfrey was examining him; next to her, Professor McGonagall, Snape and Varlerta were rapidly talking in hushed voices, their faces decidedly anxious. Harry wanted to call out to Hermione, to ask her what had happened, when the memory hit him like a second impact. Ron had tried the Death Curse on Harry. His friend had tried to kill him.

Professor McGonagall conjured up two stretchers and levitated the unconscious Ron onto one of them. Harry scrambled to his feet and refused to be placed on the other one, claiming he was feeling much better. Compared to the option of being dead, he was feeling hardly worse than 'slightly sick', in the physical sense at least; his legs were shaking, and he felt as if hoofed by a centaur, but at least he could stand properly. He even managed a wobbly, awkward apology for ruining Lavender's shoes. His mind, however, was reeling. When Professor Varlerta and Madam Pomfrey started walking towards the hospital wing, Ron floating in front of them on his stretcher, Hermione put a hand on his arm. "Let's go with them," she said. Their eyes met; Hermione looked very serious, but composed. Harry cast a look back to the Great Hall, where a Flitwick was trying very hard to re-install order; he saw a couple of house elves removing his mess from the floor and from Lavender's shoes. The last thing he wanted to do now was eat a feast. He nodded to Hermione, and when she offered him her shoulder for support, he leant on her.

Madam Pomfrey must have misunderstood his intentions in coming to the hospital wing, because she ordered him onto one of the side beds and said she would be with him as soon as she could. As soon as the two witches had disappeared into the curtained alcove with Ron, Harry got up and swayed to the washbasin, where he thoroughly rinsed his mouth and face. Hermione was meanwhile muttering a strange formula; when Harry turned to her, he could see that she had bewitched the curtain so that they could see through it. Her eyes were fixed onto Madam Pomfrey taking Ron's pulse, while Varlerta stood on the side and watched. Harry sat down next to her on a strategically placed cot to watch as well.

"Are you okay?" Hermione asked very quietly. It suddenly occurred to Harry that she hadn't asked this question before.

"Fine, no problem, why do you ask?" he replied with a sarcastic edge in his voice. Hermione only nodded quietly, her eyes fixed on Madam Pomfrey, her feet dangling over the side of the bed. Suddenly Harry felt bitterness overwhelm him. "At any rate, I'm glad to see that you went straight to the attacker to make sure he was alright, instead of to the attacked," he said acidly. "In case you didn't notice, Ron attempted to _kill_ me."

Hermione sighed and turned to face him. "Don't be ridiculous, Harry. I knew you were alright! Judging from his magical strength, Ron could no more kill you with that curse than Coax Hogwarts Castle into tap-dancing. Whatever is at work within him, I knew at once that it must be much worse than all the things he could possibly do to you."

Harry frowned, trying to make sense of her words: "So what do you _think is the matter with him?" _

Hermione raised her eyes to the ceiling, signalling disbelief. "Oh Harry, isn't it _obvious? You don't think Ron tried to kill you out of his own, free will, do you? That Ice Missile thing which hit him this summer must be to blame. These things came straight from the Death Eaters, if not from Voldemort himself. I've been waiting for something like this to happen ever since all these people were hit, and now I'm sure that must be it. At least we finally know what these Ice Missiles do, if indeed they all do the same thing, but it has to be expected that –"_

"Wait a minute," Harry interrupted her, unconvinced. "All these people, as you say. There were loads of people hit by Ice Missiles. Could you please tell me why all the other people aren't shooting Death Curses around the castle, like Fred and Cho and Hagrid?"

"Or like Lupin and Flitwick and Dumbledore?" Hermione retorted quietly. "I can't tell you why Ron was affected that way and the others weren't so far, or if they will be in future; but I can tell you one thing: If Dumbledore suddenly starts shooting Death Curses, we've got a _real_ problem here."

Just as Harry was still trying to devour this particular piece of information, the Headmaster himself entered the hospital wing, supported on both sides by Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape, looking not a bit healthier than he had at the beginning of the school year. Hastily, Hermione waved her wand to close the window in the curtain; if any of the teachers noticed her spell, none of them commented. Snape guided the feeble-stepped headmaster to Ron's bed; Professor McGonagall stopped briefly to enquire about Harry's well-being. Harry nodded mutely; he wanted to listen to what Madam Pomfrey was telling the Headmaster.

"He is not hurt in any perceptible way," the matron said. "I believe he somehow drained himself of magical strength to an extent that is rather harmful, but if I am not mistaken, he will not suffer any permanent damage. I hope he will be up and about in two or three weeks again."

"Can you tell me what happened?" Dumbledore said in his deep, calm voice that always seemed to establish him as the one in control of a situation. 

"I suppose I can, Albus." Harry clenched his fists. Even to hear Snape's voice in a moment like this, cold but in an odd, acid way amused, was simply too much. Hermione, Harry noticed, was clutching her robe in her hands, a sure sign that she was upset.

"Weasley waited for Potter at the door," Snape said matter-of-factly. "When he saw him, he shot an Death Curse at him. I can vouch for this, because I stood nearby; I heard the words and saw the green light hit Potter in the chest. Naturally, Weasley wasn't able to produce the adequate amount of strength to hurt Potter; he only threw him over. Why Weasley over-exerted himself so much, or in fact, how he was able to do this, is beyond my comprehension."

Professor McGonagall rushed to the curtain and pulled it aside to step through; she did not draw it back again, but left it open as if to include Harry and Hermione in the discussion. "Ronald Weasley would never hurt Harry Potter," she said in an indignant voice. "They are close friends, as you know very well, Severus."

Snape raised an eyebrow to give his face a look of incredulity. "If you say so, Minerva. Now if you will excuse...." He took the curtain to pull it shut again. With two quick steps, Hermione reached the enclosed alcove and planted herself right in his way, causing Snape to scowl at her. Harry wobbled after her.

"Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape, Professor Varlerta, Madam Pomfrey – may I please interrupt for a moment?" she said very politely, but at the same time very self-assured. Harry had to admit that Hermione knew how to handle such a situation: By tediously and formally addressing all the authorities present, she might actually make them listen to her.

"Miss Granger, you will undoubtedly want to talk to us about Ice Missiles," Dumbledore stated kindly. 

Hermione nodded slowly. "I was going to, but you seem to have come to the same conclusion as I did."

"Luckily, students trying to kill their best friends with the most fatal of curses, dangerously draining their own strength in the process, is something that does not happen on a regular base in this school," Dumbledore informed her. "As Ronald Weasley was hit by a vile, but unidentified missile of the enemy, I will take this as the default explanation for any strange and unpleasant occurrence until proven otherwise."

Everybody in the room, with exception of the unconscious Ron, stared at Dumbledore, probably working out further implications of this revelation. The Headmaster nodded gravely. The matron breathed heavily, while Professor McGonagall's lips thinned perceptibly. "Time bombs," Varlerta muttered. For a few long moments, nobody said a word.

"Indeed, it appears that the enemy's weapons may pose a deadly threat to all of us. The most horrible threat of all, however, seems to turn friends against friends, and to turn our children into weapons. If all those who suffered a wound this summer will become controlled by the enemy or entangled in his evil designs, we will face defeat even in victory. For what greater pain can there be than seeing your loved ones turn against you?"

Harry saw Snape move towards the Headmaster with a strange, choked noise. However, it was Hermione who said, almost shouted: "You think that Ron is controlled by Voldemort? You think he will try to do this again when he wakes up?"

Shocked at the mentioning of Voldemort's name, Madam Pomfrey shut her ears with her hands; Dumbledore looked at Hermione quite gravely. Pale but dignified, Professor McGonagall replied: "I am afraid we will not know this until he wakes up." 

"What about the other people?" Oddly, Harry suddenly had to think of Cho, not to mention of Lupin, and of the headmaster himself. "Will they try the same – to kill someone?" To kill _me_, he thought, but was unwilling to spell it out too clearly. "Isn't there anything we can do? Heal them, I mean?"

"Heal them? But how?" Madam Pomfrey wrung her hands. Professor McGonagall turned to Snape, who mutely shook his head. Then the Transfiguration teacher turned her gaze towards Varlerta.

"I must disappoint you, Minerva – I have never heard of any spell or substance that cures an unknown and mysterious evil at work inside a person. To me, it sounds like a classical case for a panacea," Varlerta said dully.

"A panacea, indeed. A brilliant idea, _Professor_." Snape's upper lip curled. Then he turned to Dumbledore. "If we are down to miracle healers and alchemists, maybe you should ask your senile friend for help, Albus."

Professor McGonagall raised both eyebrows in a decidedly sceptic expression. "Him, you mean? Isn't he dead _yet?"_

"I'm afraid not," Dumbledore said wearily. "Or, just in case that he will be indeed of any help this time, I should say, thank goodness he probably isn't, yet. Maybe Varlerta's offhand suggestion is our only hope."

Varlerta snorted. "Alchemists? Who are you talking about? Are you being serious? As a matter of fact, I wasn't really when I mentioned a panacea."

"This is no time for jokes, Professor Varlerta," Professor McGonagall chided her. Madam Pomfrey nodded mournfully. Ignoring the putdown, Varlerta insisted:

"Do you really, really seriously know someone able to produce a panacea? A true alchemist?"

Dumbledore hesitated before he replied: "This remains to be proven. We will leave nothing untried to cure Ronald Weasley, and others if this is necessary. Right now, we know practically nothing about how the Ice Missiles were made, what they did and how their effect can be stopped or prevented."

"I wish we had a spy among the Death Eaters," Professor McGonagall remarked sadly, then with a sideway glance checked herself: "Forgive me, Severus, that was tasteless."

Snape haughtily ignored her remark. Varlerta gnawed her bottom lip. Dumbledore stretched out his palms in a gesture of helplessness. "We do not, and we will not, and that's the end of it, I believe."

"So what happens to Ron?" Harry asked, unwilling to let the adults change the subject.

"Do you really know someone who is able to produce a panacea?" Hermione asked, hope in her voice. It seemed that unlike Harry, she knew what the teachers had been talking about.

"We know someone who may still be able to make it," Dumbledore replied.

"_If_ he isn't dead yet," Professor McGonagall added in an uncharacteristically pert voice.

"That's true, _if_," Professor Dumbledore conceded.


	12. Ginny

12 – Ginny 

Ginny knew it was mean and selfish to resent her mother coming to Hogwarts in view of her brother's 'accident', as everyone euphemistically called it. Of course, she would not let her feelings show, but would try her best to do her filial duty – she knew what was expected of her: She would be supportive and kind, keep in the background, would even accept unfair criticism of controversial points like her hair, just to make allowance for her mother's exceptional shock. 

Of course, Ron had been hurt before at school; more than two years ago, he had broken his leg, for instance, as Ginny remembered. This, however, was different; Ron had been unconscious for a day and a half, and there was no telling what would happen next. It was certainly the kind of situation where a parent would be called to Hogwarts, especially such a trusted member of the wizarding community as Molly Weasley. However, if she could have her way, Ginny contemplated as she walked to the Apparation site with Professor McGonagall, she would have a chance to be upset on her own, without a weeping mother by her side. Life without Ron was simply inconceivable; the thought that the youngest of her brothers might actually die, or suffer a magically induced character defect, was so terrible that it knocked Ginny off her tracks. She simply did not have enough steam to cope with her mother right now, she thought as she stopped at the spot not far from the Hogwarts grounds, waiting for Molly Weasley to appear out of thin air.

Suddenly her mother was next to them, chubby and weeping, under her arm a Kelim carpet Ginny was sure she had seen before somewhere. Molly shook Professor McGonagall's hand and said it was so good of the teacher to meet her; after the slightest hesitation, she hugged Ginny and called her her 'poor darling.' Ginny awkwardly patted her mother on the shoulder, remembering the days at St. Mungo's, when she, barely recovering from pneumonia, had sat on Ron's and on Fred's bedside with Molly. For a while, it had looked as if at least Ron would be alright, but now he seemed worse than ever. Ginny forbade herself to even think of Fred and George for now and told her mother that everything would be fine. Then she helped Molly unroll the magic carpet. Professor McGonagall frowned at the illegal means of transportation, but probably decided it was the wrong moment to argue with a worry-ridden, not to mention anti-athletic mother and to force her to make her way to the castle on foot. So the three of them flew low over the ground, slightly uncomfortable due to the carpet's flapping and shaking, until they gently landed outside the front door.

Molly stormed up to the hospital wing, wordlessly rushed past the slightly miffed matron and sunk down on the edge of Ron's bed. She stroked the fiery hair of her youngest son and said in a choked voice: "Ron, oh my Ronnie, my baby. Please wake up, oh, please, wake up for your mummy."

Ron, as always taking Molly for the ultimate authority that was just a crucial step above his father, his teachers, and probably the Ministry of Magic itself, wearily opened one eye and whispered: "I didn't mean to do it, mum. Please don't send a howler." 

Even Ginny did not manage to remain dry-eyed. She might criticise her mother to be an old-fashioned, even conservative old housewife, but she certainly had to acknowledge that nobody knew how to wandlessly work a miracle like her. Ron fell into a coma-like sleep again immediately after his brief utterance, but Madam Pomfrey, tearful herself, assured the sobbing Molly that this was a very good sign, a very good sign indeed. Pale and shaking, her cheeks covered with tears, Molly nodded and softly repeated Madam Pomfrey's words several times like a mechanical form of self-reassurance, a mantra of hope. Ginny, however, could not help turning Ron's own words over and over in her head. He had not meant to do it. She remembered a time when she had done things she had not meant to do, and the memory did nothing to calm her.

Madam Pomfrey sent a house-elf for Harry and Hermione, who came running into the hospital room only a few minutes later. Overjoyed at the news that Ron had spoken, they stormed Molly with questions, at the same time managing to shower her with words of comfort. Ginny did not really listen, but looked at her brother's immobile face, for some reason remembering how a very young Ron once upon a time had been the first to show her how to hold a wand, trying to get her assistance for breaking into Molly's pantry. Of course, she was glad he had talked, because this might mean he would wake up soon; however, she could not help wondering anxiously whether Ron would be Ron again once he got well.

"Professor Dumbledore believes that Ronald is better off here than at St. Mungo's," Madam Pomfrey informed Molly hoarsely. "We flew in two trustworthy mediwizards yesterday, who affirmed that they did not know which treatment was appropriate, and that he might as well stay here for now. It's better if there's as little talk as possible about this, because our legal position is a bit shaky, I am afraid. That's why we believe that he is safest at Hogwarts. We will do for him whatever we can, of course. Maybe all will be well – maybe he will just wake up and be himself again, although Professor Dumbledore said he did not believe we would get off so easily. The trouble is that we do not know what exactly is wrong with your son, or whether he will get well without help. Professor Dumbledore thinks it likely that the Ice Missile which hit Ronald this summer may have worked an unknown evil within him. As we do not know the nature of his affliction, Professor Varlerta suggested using a panacea. Now we are hoping for our expert who can actually produce such a substance. Professor Dumbledore says he knows someone who may be able to do this, though who that may be he did not tell me."

Molly had paled again during the matron's words. "A panacea? Then it seems there is indeed little hope," she said tonelessly. "No one has produced a panacea in centuries. Oh Ron, my baby, please wake up for me and be yourself again." She sank back on his bedside, took his lifeless hand in hers and pressed it to her forehead. This time, however, her plea remained unanswered; Ron's hand soon dripped with Molly's tears, but did not move.

"Hermione," whispered a very pale Harry, "what _is a panacea?"_

Nauseous with fear and sorrow, Ginny was still dying to hear herself what kind of substance might cure her brother, so she listened closely.

"A panacea is supposed to be something that cures all sicknesses," Hermione replied, her voice oddly inflectionless. "It was one of the main aims of medieval alchemy to produce such a substance, but it remains doubtful whether anybody ever succeeded – reports about panaceas are highly speculative and may well belong to the realm of myths." She rubbed her eyes rather forcefully.

"Is it something like – like a potion?" Harry asked quietly. 

Hermione shook her head and replied in a hushed, but calmer voice: "Not quite. While the ingredients may be mixed and maybe even brewed like a potion in the beginning of the process, a panacea is supposed to be a metaphysical concoction. As you well know, potions are brewed without the use of a wand; the magic comes out of the ingredients and the witch's or wizard's brewing skill. A panacea, on the other hand, is believed to be one of the most advanced forms of medieval magic; its making involves spells and incantations and many procedures we know nothing about. If anybody could produce a panacea without great effort, we would all brew it by the gallon. Think about it – a substance that can cure all sicknesses from cancer to tooth ache, and not only for our kind, but also for Muggles. You could cure all of Africa of AIDS. You could close all hospitals and abolish the National Health Service – and all this with a single, metaphysical substance."

Harry mutely shook his head in a bewildered way. Ginny admitted she felt the same. As often, Hermione vaguely reminded her of a particularly abstruse comic book in which _Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle_ mechanically talked like a dictionary after accidentally swallowing a computer hard drive. How could her friend look so heartbrokenly sad and at the same time emit a stream of coherent if slightly pointless information? At any rate, the tension in the room had thickened due to Hermione's pessimistic statement; Molly sobbed, Harry's eyes looked shiny in an odd way, and Madam Pomfrey was making an effort to avoid everybody's eyes. National Health Service, metaphysical substance, indeed. The only question Ginny found truly relevant at the moment was: No panacea, did that mean no Ron? 

Realising that for once, her mother must feel exactly like she did, she put her hand on Molly's shoulder. Her mother turned to look into her face; Ginny could see the tears streaming off-course over the slight wrinkles covering her cheekbones. Then, rather unexpectedly, Molly hugged her abruptly and continued sobbing into her daughter's robes. Awkwardly, Ginny patted her mother's shoulders. "It will be alright," she whispered, in lack of anything better to say. "We are at Hogwarts, Mum, and we've got loads of scholars and Spellsearchers, and we've got Madam Pomfrey, and we can fly in all the mediwizards and alchemists in the country. I'm sure that they will work out _something. I mean, what better place can there be to develop a panacea for Ron than here?"_

"My darling, you are so brave," Molly sobbed. Then she wiped her eyes with her robes' sleeve and straightened her back. "I'll be brave, too, then," she said with sudden decision in her voice. "Of course your brother will get well, and so will your other brother, because they always do. I want to talk to someone." She turned to Madam Pomfrey. "May I speak with the Headmaster?"

"The Headmaster is _resting_, I'm afraid," the matron replied meekly without meeting Molly's gaze. "As far as the panacea is concerned, Professor Snape will be most willing to tell you all we know."

Ginny thought she saw Molly's eyes turn towards the ceiling, though maybe she had only imagined it. "Professor Snape, yes, of course," Molly replied with the slightest snap in her voice. 

"Mr Potter, Miss Granger, can you fetch Professor Snape here?" Madam Pomfrey asked, probably welcoming the chance of getting a part of the crowd out of the hospital wing. 

Ginny pictured them fetching the Potions master; she pictured the resulting mood of Snape and predicted his consequent behaviour to her mother. Quickly, she said: "We will all go." She made a motion towards Hermione and Harry, who were standing in the corner pretending they did not exist. Both immediately followed her out of the room and consented to leave the errand to Ginny as soon as she explained to them why she thought this a good idea.

Snape did not respond to the knock on his office's door, so Ginny concluded that he must still be in his classroom, cleaning up after his last class. She found the door to the Potions' room ajar; inside, someone was talking. Still trying to avoid all disturbances to the teacher's mood, Ginny waited politely outside, eavesdropping out of sheer habit rather than intentionally.

"Miss Weiss, it is unfathomable to me why you believe this affair to be of any concern to me." Snape's voice was brittle and moderately sarcastic, but not yet truly choleric, Ginny analysed. There still was hope that he might treat her mother relatively decently – provided that Miss Weiss, whoever she was, meekly and promptly backed off from whatever the 'affair' was.

"But you're the_ Head of my house_! You are _supposed_ to care for us!" Miss Weiss, obviously a younger student, and audibly upset, seemed to have no intention to be meek, or brief. "Please, Professor Snape – if you could just sort of – _introduce_ us, you know? My father said that Slytherins _always_ help each other. It's nothing but a _tiny_ bit of help I ask, only twenty seconds of your time. You know that she is a Gryffindor, and they won't even _talk_ to us most of the time. Everybody says she's one of your favourite students, so she'll certainly listen to you."

"Miss Weiss." Snape made one of his famous speech pauses, moments of silence which bristled with the imminent threat of things to come. Ginny could feel the short hair at the back of her neck stand on its end. This was not going well. 

"Miss Weiss, even if I had the slightest, I repeat, the slightest interest in such utterly trivial things as Miss Weasley's _band, as you call it, I would certainly not see it as part of my job to approach her on your behalf.  If any students see it fitting to waste their valuable study time on such nonsense, it seems I cannot prevent it, but I do not see why I should further it. As for favourite students, I assure you I have none; neither, indeed, do I feel any inclination to be the message boy for my students, be they Slytherins or common oafs," Snape said jaggedly. _

"But you're the_ Head of my house_!" Miss Weiss retorted, tears in her voice. For all her apparent madness, Ginny could not help but admire the younger student's courage.

"As the _Head of my house_, I strongly advise to take some beginner's classes in appropriate behaviour towards your teachers and elders, Miss Weiss! Get yourself out of here, or I will take points from your house. And before you approach Miss Weasley, you might as well remember that she may be pre-occupied by the fact that her brother is currently lying in a coma." 

If Snape wasn't such a bastard, Ginny thought, she might almost have felt touched by the last remark. As it was, while she listened to Miss Weiss' squeal, she contemplated the question whether Snape had indeed ever taken any points whatsoever from his own house. Then the younger girl stormed out of the Potions classroom; seeing Ginny at the door, she stared at her for a moment, squealed again, and then ran off in the direction of the Slytherin dungeon. Ginny shook her head. She recognised the smallish, silver-blonde girl as Kay or Kate or something, a third-year Slytherin. After wondering very briefly what the younger student might want of her and her band, Ginny silently counted to ten, straightened her shoulders, inhaled deeply and entered the classroom. Snape's mood would be spoiled for good, but she had come to fetch him, and fetch him she would. Snape was performing a complex-looking spell over the waste potion basin, probably magically annihilating a day's mess. Although Ginny was sure the teacher had seen her come in, the Potions master finished his incantation before he turned to her, putting on a scowl the moment he turned his head.

"And now, what may _you_ be wanting of me?" he spat.

"Professor, my mother wants to talk to you about panaceas," Ginny said plainly.

Snape's eyes narrowed. "Why is it always you they send to bring me bad news?" he asked, sounding absurdly serious. He deftly slammed shut the waste potion basin, accurately kicked a table back in line with his heel and followed Ginny to the hospital wing.

Molly was still sitting at Ron's bedside, holding his hand, when Ginny and the teacher entered. Hearing them come in, she rose, awkwardly straightened her wrinkled robes and asked hoarsely:

"Professor, what can you tell me about panaceas? Is there hope for my son, with or without them?"

Snape looked her straight in the eyes, his face expressionless. After a pause, he said: "I am afraid I can tell you very little indeed about panaceas, Mrs Weasley. On behalf of the school, I am expressing my sincerest regrets for your son's misfortune."

Molly's eyes widened. "You mean there is nothing you can do?"

"Before we can _do_ anything, Mrs Weasley, we will have to know precisely against what we are fighting." Snape assumed his lecture tone; he seemed to be focussing on a spot a few inches above Molly's head. "It would help if Ronald woke up, but it would not mean the end of our problem. Unless we find out what is at work within your son that caused him to aim a death curse at another student, it seems we must indeed hope for something like a panacea to guarantee the intactness of his character."

Ginny could have kicked the teacher for putting things so blandly, for making no allowance for Molly's grief, but to her surprise, her mother did not start crying again. Instead, she fixed her eyes on Snape's face.

"And what hope is there that we can _get a panacea for him?" she insisted._

"We have an expert, who has just reassured us that he is still, er – available, and will be here tomorrow." Snape replied evasively. "His name needs to be of no concern for you. Just rest assured that he is properly trained in the genuine arts of alchemy."

Molly paled. "You mean he will try to tap the _source?"_

Now it was Snape's turn to pale. "What would _you_ know about the _source?" he snapped. _

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Molly sent her daughter off for the rest of her classes. Ginny could not concentrate; again and again, her mind strayed off to her unconscious brother, to her sickness-stricken twin brothers, and to the fears and sorrows of her mother. In Transfiguration, she managed to mangle and kill her snail instead of turning it into a gardenia; Professor McGonagall quietly gave her a bottle of magical mess remover and did not reproach her for her failure. In History of Magic, concentration was out of the question; Ginny just tried to call no attention to herself, which was rather easy, as Professor Binns was not one to notice much about his students.

After classes, Ginny hurried to Ravenclaw Hall to tell Joolz there would not be any band practice that night; Rhonda and Neville knew already, and had known before she had told them, but with people from other houses you could never be so sure. In the corridor she met Cho, so she asked her to send Joolz out to her, as she was not allowed in the common room unless formally invited in. Then she leant against the wall, waiting for him.

Soon Joolz came out to her through the magic portal of Ravenclaw which Ginny would not have known how to open even if she had wanted to. He leant against the wall next to her; between his fingers, he twisted his front left dreadlock, as was his habit. "How's your brother?" he asked, kindness in his voice. 

"Don't know," Ginny murmured, bent on not embarrassing herself in front of the older student. "He woke up very shortly when my mum came, but …" she broke off, trying hard not to cry. 

"That's good then, isn't it?" Joolz looked concerned. Not for the first time, Ginny noticed the amazing blue of his eyes and the seven freckles spread on the root of his nose only. She felt the absurd wish to sink against his shoulders and let the tears flow. 

"There is – there is no band practice tonight, I'm afraid," she stammered instead.

"Well, _of course there isn't," Joolz replied. Then suddenly he reached out, took hold of her shoulder, pulled her towards him and hugged her with one arm. His other hand touched the tips of Ginny's short-cropped hair very gently and briefly. Ginny's nose pressed against his robed shoulder; she smelt the smoke of what was probably the Ravenclaw common room's open fireplace and a whiff of something that reminded her of incense. For some odd reason, her heartbeat increased; she felt cheered and terribly sad at the same time._

"It will be alright," Joolz murmured. "They'll find a way to make him better, I am sure they will. Just go up to your mother and see whether there's any change, alright?"

Reluctantly Ginny removed her nose from Joolz' shoulder and straightened up to look him in the face. "Alright," she said, "I'll go see how they are doing."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

During the afternoon, Ron had stirred again, but did not seem to be waking up, Molly informed Ginny. In the meantime, the mother of all the Weasleys was trying to put on not only a brave, but optimistic face. Ginny found her attempts at cheerful pretence slightly aggravating, but knew that it might be the best way of dealing with two very sick sons at the same time: 

In the evening, Fred and George arrived at Hogwarts to see their mother and to visit Ron's sickbed. Fred was leaning heavily on his twin; it seemed he was even thinner than the last time Ginny had seen him. George looked strained. Molly greeted both as if nothing was the matter and asked whether they were eating proper meals.

"Mum, what about the clock?" George asked, ignoring her question. 

It took Ginny a moment to get his meaning; just as she realised which clock he must be referring to, her mother almost whispered: "Stuck on mortal peril since last night, stuck there _all_ the time."

Ginny could see the clock almost as in a vision: Four hands, Molly's, Fred's, George's and hers, pointing at 'school', four more, her father's, Bill's, Charlie's and Percy's, probably pointing at 'work', and her brother's, the second shortest, sticking right up into the fatal midnight position. She squeezed her eyes shut to force back the moisture. Was her brother going to die? What would become of him, and how could she reach him?

Then she experienced a strange sensation, as if a stitch of her mind had caught on a tiny hook which threatened to cause a ladder in it. Turning her attention to the imagined hook, she suddenly thought of Neville Coaxing her to stand on one leg, Coaxing her to clap a bossa nova clave, Coaxing her to do so many little things, successful as long as she did not find them objectionable. They had been practicing Coaxing on each other, an easy task as they had learned to trust each other. Now that she made the first, smallest progress in Coaxing humans, was it worth a try? Provided that Ron _wanted to wake up, could she induce him to do so? _

She slid towards the door, indicating to George that she would be back in five minutes by raising a hand and stretching out all its fingers, then ran up to Gryffindor Tower. Simply ignoring all her friends and classmates in the common room, she sped up the stairs to her dormitory, grabbed her beloved Shaman drum and turned around again to head back. While taking two or three stairs in one step on her way down, she could feel the magical instrument vibrate in her fingers. It was excited to do some magic, she told herself; it even felt as if it knew this was a _real_ task, not just practice. 

Neville waited for her at the portrait hole, half blocking it. He was holding his wand and his flute case in his left; with his right he grabbed hold of her sleeve. Unwilling to delay even for a second, she still halted when he asked her to wait for him.

"This is urgent," she explained and pushed the portrait outwards.

"Why? This is about Ron, isn't it? And it's not like he's going anywhere." 

Ginny shrugged, trying to sound casual, though her breath came in gasps. "None of your business. I'm just..."

"Taking your drum for a walk," Neville completed her sentence. "Well, can I come, too?"

Ginny wasn't sure she really wanted him around; she felt as if this was a thing between Ron and her. On the other hand, she knew that Neville and she worked well together. After a short hesitation, she replied: "Alright then, but let's be careful."

Together they walked over to the hospital wing, their step relaxed, because, as Neville had said, Ron would not go anywhere in the meantime. Also, Ginny knew from experience, it was never a good idea to run together with Neville if you were in a hurry; he'd trip over his shoelaces and fall, or lose half his belongings on the way, or find some other way to slow everybody down with his clumsiness. As it was, they made their way back to Ron's sickbed in a tolerably short period of time. George raised his eyebrows when he saw them; even Fred turned his head. Molly, however, looked like she would throw a fit.

"Virginia Weasley, what in the world you think you are doing with that drum at your brother's sickbed?"

"I'll try to Coax him into waking up," Ginny replied in a small voice, cringing inwardly because she had no idea whether she had any chance to succeed. 

"With a _drum_?" Molly asked shrilly. Madam Pomfrey walked to her side and fixed Ginny with a reproachful stare.

"It's a magical drum, mum," Ginny said softly. Then she added a little cheekily: "It's not like he needs his sleep, is it?"

"Can this do harm, Madam Pomfrey?" Molly turned to the matron, her face expressing doubt.

"You want to Coax him, Virginia? With music, you mean?" Madam Pomfrey asked in her strictest voice. Ginny was sure the matron would turn them out of the room.

"That was the plan," she replied, her eyes downcast.

"Well, you might as well try," Madam Pomfrey said in a slightly sarcastic tone, but made an inviting gesture towards Ron's bed. Molly moved out of the way; George raised his eyebrows at her in an expectant way, and on Fred's face Ginny saw the ghost of a smile.

"Please – I have no idea whether this will work," Ginny told them, suddenly scared of the task she was attempting. "Don't get your hopes up, Mum."

Molly smiled at Ginny rather warmly; a few lines of strain disappeared from her face. Ginny thought that her mother had not smiled at her like this in a long, long time. "It is enough that you try," Molly said rather tenderly, then sat down on a chair next to Fred and George.

"Let's try to tell him that it would be really cool to wake up, that everybody's here, and that we would all be so happy to talk to him," Ginny whispered to Neville. "I'll start." Neville nodded and assembled the pieces of his flute, waiting for Ginny to take action. 

Ginny said on the edge of Ron's bed and placed his right limp hand on her knee. Her left hand held the drum on her lap; the fingers of her right touched the skin of her drum, but did not make a sound. She half-closed her eyes and concentrated on Ron's breathing. In, and out, a break – in, and out, a break – without really meaning to, she slowed her own inhaling to coordinate it with his. Gently, her fingers started to move in circles on the skin of her drum with the rhythm of their breathing, making the faintest sound. Then she closed her eyes, closed off all senses but her hearing, and focused her perception on her brother lying beside her. Inside her head, a picture of his mind developed, something she could not have described, but which she perceived to be quite different from the other mind she had Coaxed so far, namely Neville's, something which in an unexplainable way was simply Ron. Inwardly she called out to him very tentatively. As if the concentric circles of waves made by two stones thrown into still water met and merged, she felt she had at last made some contact with him: In some way, however faint and obscure, Ron knew she was there. Softly, Ginny struck the drum with her fingertips. _Ron, it's me, she tried to tell him through the sound._

Feeling the rhythm before she actually heard it, she started to play. Each beat resonated through her body and mind and found an echo in that other presence, which was Ron. _I am hearing his heartbeat_, she realised; _I am playing his heartbeat_. Her perception of his mind became clearer; she felt greeted by him. _Ron, I've come to tell you to wake up_, she tried to mediate through the sound of her drum. _Ron, Mum is here, and the twins, and they would be so happy to talk to you. Oh please, Ron, come back with me and wake up, wake up now._

She felt as if he was turning away from her, and increased the volume of her playing by a little bit. In its echo, Ron's heartbeat, she heard something like a limp, something that disturbed the rhythm, something which Ron, it seemed, was trying to hide from her. She felt this interference vibrate on the skin of the Shaman drum; it gave her a sense of cogwheels turning, cogwheels working around one single grain of sand which was breaking their rhythm. _It's only a grain of sand, Ron – please come with me and wake up, she pleaded with her steady heartbeat groove. _

After a while, it seemed that Ron was answering her; she felt rather than heard his reply that he could not come with her, that he had to take care of that disturbance first. Ginny was confused. Was this the right or the wrong decision? When would he wake up if he did not come with her now? Once more she pleaded with him, but it seemed he did not hear her anymore; his heartbeat and her rhythm drifted apart. Ginny felt emptiness overwhelm her, felt the bitterness of failure. She let her rhythm slacken.

Suddenly, a warm, high-pitched note filled the air and then another. Neville, she realised, was weaving his tones into her playing. Out of habit rather than out of a conscious decision, she picked up her pace again to join him. Her inner ears searched for her brother and found him turning back towards them. Neville's tune sounded like a welcoming smile. Ron, she felt, was full of doubt whether to join their music; there was something worrying him. Ginny played a few short, questioning phrases, trying to find out whether Ron's hesitation was justified. Ron, however, appeared to be following Neville's tune, a tune that seemed to sing of Hogwarts, of autumn storms and falling leaves, of lively Quidditch matches, of the warm fireside and the merry chatter of the Gryffindor common room. Ginny joined in, imitating people laughing and talking, rattling her fingers on the drum to make them sound like snap cards ready to explode. Neville focused his tune, and evoked a clear picture before Ginny's eyes – Harry, his face distorted by worry, and Hermione, who, clearly it could be heard in the tune, was weeping. 

After a moment, Ginny felt a sharp pain on her knee which broke her concentration. Her hand missed the next beat and slipped on the drum. Abruptly torn out of her trance-like state, she opened her eyes without meaning to. On her knee, she saw Ron's hand, half-forgotten but now painfully clawing into her leg. She looked up into his face and saw that his eyes were open. "An awful lot of noise you are making," he said hoarsely. 

Ginny let her right hand sink down on Ron's blanket, too exhausted to understand fully what she was seeing. Next to her, she heard Neville's tune quiver, then die. She turned to him and found him very pale, but smiling. Looking back at Ron, she half-whispered: "I am sorry we disturbed you, but we wanted you to wake up."

"I've got a terrible headache," Ron complained. He closed his eyes for a moment and groaned. "Oh, and I must have had one helluva nightmare. I dreamed I tried to kill Harry. Isn't that some load of rubbish?" Then his eyes wandered across the room; when he spotted Molly, Fred and George, he started. "Hey, what is everybody doing here?" 

Ginny looked behind her and saw not only her family members, Madam Pomfrey and Neville, but also a moist-eyed Varlerta. Behind the open door, she also saw a shadow that suspiciously looked like Snape, but which disappeared before she could verify her guess. 

Molly moved back towards Ron's bed and took his hand in hers, for once refraining to chide her son for his bad language. "You've been ill," she said. "I hope you are well again now." 


	13. Hermione

13 – Hermione 

The moment she saw the alchemist, her standards of age were drastically altered. She had always believed that at twenty, people became adults, at thirty or forty, most people became boring and once they had passed sixty, seventy if they were lucky, they were in for the downwards spiral that inevitably pulled them into the abyss of death. Of course, there were exceptions, Dumbledore being the most prominent among them. True, she wasn't quite sure exactly how old the Headmaster was, but at least until he was injured he had always impressed her by being old but not being bothered by it. 'Old', however, became relative when she saw the alchemist. He was tiny, emaciated and incredibly wrinkled; around his eyes, clusters of fragile folds formed circular walls in which the pupil itself shone like distant water on the bottom of a very deep well. From his furrowed scalp dangled only a few thin, but long strands of whitish hair; his shaggy beard looked as if it was a home to moths and spiders. Above the beard, the nose looked like an arthritic finger joint, while his hands themselves seemed like the claws of a mummy. Hermione observed his bent back and his shaky, somehow robot-like walk as he shuffled towards Ron's sickbed. This wizard was _old_, she told herself.

She had been sitting by Ron's bedside, trying hard to be patient with her red-headed friend's ceaseless self-reproaches. "It is not your fault," she had told him about a thousand times; so had Harry, who was presently at Quidditch practice. At first Ron had believed his memory of the event to be a nightmare, but when Professor McGonagall had informed him very gently that he had indeed uttered a death curse against his best friend, it had all come back to him. Ron was devastated, and nothing his friends could say seemed to be able to change that: No evil weapon in the world, he claimed, should make anyone turn against his best friends and try to kill them. 

Ron had been mostly awake since he had been miraculously Coaxed into consciousness by Ginny and Neville, but he seemed weak and ill, not so much in the physical but in the spiritual sense. Hermione had the impression he could not look her in the eye; the way he blamed himself seemed to go far beyond what she would have found reasonable. For the last ten minutes, he had been dozing. Hermione knew she should have left him, but was for some reason unwilling to do so, especially as she had brought an Arithmancy book to keep her company in such cases. She tried to ignore the growing anxiety inside her – namely that he reminded her of Fred, of the way Ron's brother seemed to have withered to a shadow within days of being hit. Hermione tried to reason with herself: Why would Ron become like Fred if Fred had never uttered a death curse? But then again, why had the Ice Missiles affected people so differently in the first place? Her mind was reeling; the fear for her friend mingled with a certain fascination that went even beyond that of the complex and intriguing Arithmancy problems posed in the book. Solving the Ice Missiles' mystery, finding a cure and healing those that were hurt – Hermione felt she could desire nothing more than this.

The thought of a real alchemist coming to Hogwarts had fascinated her before she had seen him in person; it was understood that he must be a distinguished scholar, a wizard of rare abilities. When he entered the room, wearing a costly brown brushed-velvet robe, flanked by Professor McGonagall and by Snape, she saw in him the means to get what she desired: Surely nobody could aid her better in finding out the secrets of the Ice Missiles and in curing Ron than this ancient magician. 

"Is this the lad who has been so evilly afflicted?" the alchemist asked Snape in a voice that was as brittle as aged parchment. Hermione thought that the question did not betray a surplus of intelligence, as besides Ron, there was no other boy in the hospital wing; however, she immediately dismissed such heretical ideas. 

"Indeed, this is Ronald Weasley, the boy who has tried to curse his best friend to death, Loremaster Flamel," Snape replied quite deferentially.

"_Flamel_?" Hermione repeated and jumped up from the bedside, completely taken aback. Could she have misheard Snape's words? "Nicholas Flamel? Aren't you supposed to be dead?" Then she clapped her hands over her mouth, realising it might not be the polite thing to say to someone you had just met.

"Oh, never worry about such trifles, my fair chick, never worry," Flamel said, making a soothing movement with his withered hand. "I have indeed been thus addressed for more than six hundred years now." He lowered himself into the armchair Professor McGonagall had placed by the side of Ron's bed for him; even though he was wearing a robe, Hermione could perceive his knees shaking. With a hoarse groan, the ancient alchemist leant back, then very carefully took one of Ron's pale and slightly limp hands in his. "Thanks to Keranta, thou only sleepest, my dear lad," he said to him quite kindly. 

Probably awoken by Flamel's touch and voice, Ron stirred and blinked. "Whassup?" he asked rather weakly.

"Oh, thou hast woken, dear lad. I have come to this fortress of learning to attempt to cure thee of the evil that afflicts thee," Flamel replied delightedly and patted Ron's hand. 

Ron only stared at the alchemist and quickly tore his hand out the fingers that were holding it; then he gave Hermione a questioning, almost fearful look. "He's mental, is he?" he mouthed to her. For a tiny moment he looked like the Ron Hermione knew, the Ron who would never utter curses against his friends or spend his time brooding and condemning himself.

"Ronald Weasley, this is Loremaster Nicholas Flamel," Professor McGonagall informed him rather stiffly.

Ron's eyes widened. "Nicholas Flamel? Aren't you supposed to be dead?" he asked to Professor McGonagall's visible dismay.

Ignoring Ron's question, Flamel took Ron's wrist to feel his pulse, just as if it was a thing, not a part of a human with his own will. Ron's eyes locked with Hermione's. She perceived his bewilderment, his fear even – he had done something terrible which he did not comprehend, and now inexplicable things were happening to him. 

Madam Pomfrey came in, greeted Flamel with reverence and gave him a role of parchment, containing, as she told the alchemist, all the diseases and injuries Ron had ever had at Hogwarts, as well as her observations regarding his current affliction. The ancient wizard accepted the document with a gracious nod and instantly immersed himself in its content. 

Professor McGonagall turned to Hermione. "Miss Granger, I believe it's time you returned to your studies," she said a bit tersely. 

Hermione knew she wasn't really supposed to ask if she could stay, but as the alternative option would have been just to get up and leave, she did so nevertheless: "Professor, I think there would be _so_ much to learn for me here, and maybe it would be good if Ron had a friend around, too. Could you possibly consider permitting me to stay?" She avoided looking at Ron for a moment, knowing he would hate to be patronised, even now.

Professor McGonagall frowned at Hermione; the very moment Snape's lips parted for an undoubtedly harsh rebuff, Flamel's head rose from the document. "What desirest thou to learn, my chick?" he asked Hermione.

She could not very well say that she wanted to learn as much as she could about alchemy, one of the most secret and well-guarded disciplines of magic. Instead, she answered Flamel: "I am thinking of becoming a mediwitch, and this seems to be a unique case. As you come from the past, you may know of methods and spells which have been forgotten in our time."

The alchemist seemed to appraise her with his eyes for a moment; then he nodded: "You may stay, then." 

Hermione could see that Professor McGonagall and Snape were not delighted at his pronouncement; meanwhile, Madam Pomfrey was beaming at Hermione, probably already seeing her as her apprentice. Admittedly, becoming a mediwitch was only one of many, many career options Hermione had so far considered; for some reason, as she looked at the withered old sorcerer, the idea of becoming an _alchemist_ suddenly gained appeal for her. 

When Flamel took a tiny golden instrument out of his pocket, which seemed to be a cross-breeding between a compass and Mrs. Weasley's clock, Hermione's curiosity increased. The device was round, a little bigger than most watches, and contained about a dozen silver hands which were adorned with symbols of planets and a few signs she had never seen before.

The alchemist pulled away Ron's blanket, deftly opened the buttons of his pyjama top in spite of his patient's weak protestations, then pressed the golden instrument just where Ron's heart had to be. Even though she chastely glanced aside, Hermione noticed that the uneven hand of nature had sprinkled a bit of coppery hair on the skin of her friend's naked chest. Ron bit his bottom lip, whether out of embarrassment or whether the contact with the instrument was for some strange reason painful, she did not know. Flamel observed how some of the little hands slowly moved in a circle, while others stood still or trembled visibly. He scratched his ugly beard and tugged at one of his few remaining strands of hair. Then he drew a needle from his robes' pockets, pricked Ron into his arm and nodded when his patient made a face.

"Indeed, methinks this task is deemed fit for an alchemist," he said to Madam Pomfrey and the two teachers, neglecting Hermione and Ron. "Clearly my dowser can measure a torrent of –" he broke off and raised his eyebrows. Madam Pomfrey seemed to hold her breath for a moment, Snape scowled, and Professor McGonagall nodded solemnly. Obviously Loremaster Flamel had transmitted his information regarding what exactly he had measured to the adults only, while leaving the students in the dark about it. Hermione noticed that Ron did not even frown at being kept ignorant about his own condition; rather he looked like Flamel's words did not really concern him. His lack of response worried her. If it had been her, she would have wanted to know what was streaming through her body that could be measured with an instrument called a _dowser_, especially if this torrent was suspected to have induced her to curse Harry. Again, the ghost of Fred's apathy rose before her eyes; she shuddered.

"Would thou mayhap have an Unspeakable here on the premises?" Flamel asked offhandedly.

Madam Pomfrey shook her head; Professor McGonagall and Snape however exchanged glances. Finally Snape shrugged.

"As a matter of fact, we do," Professor McGonagall replied. "Do you want me to call him here?"

"Pray do so, my good lady," Flamel replied.

"It is high time for Miss Granger to leave, then," Snape said morosely to Professor McGonagall as if Hermione wasn't present. Ron's eyes darted towards the teachers, then back to Hermione; suddenly she could see something very like panic in his eyes. Without thinking, she took his hand and felt him clasp it for a moment. In a way, his fear calmed her, because it was better than a Ron who did not care what happened to him; on the other hand, she could perfectly well understand why he was worried.

"Please, Professor McGonagall, could you tell us what's going on? It's – it's not very reassuring for Ron not to know what's wrong with him, and how you are attempting to cure him," she said awkwardly. The shaking in her voice surprised her.

"Miss Granger, I understand your concern, but I assure you and Mr. Weasley that there is nothing to worry about," Professor McGonagall said in a strained and slightly false voice. "I apologise for causing you so much anxiety in these troubled days. Be assured that we are doing what we can to lift Mr. Weasley's con- condition, and that we are not, that we are certainly not attempting anything – dangerous." The teacher's voice nearly failed her; she coughed. 

Hermione's worries were anything but lifted: Professor McGonagall had never been one to stumble over her words or to stutter. She rose to her feet to make one more attempt at resisting, though she felt it was futile. "If it's nothing dangerous, can't I maybe just stay with Ron for moral support?" she asked in her politest voice.

"Miss Granger, you will return to your studies now." Professor McGonagall's lips had thinned; the tenseness in her shoulders said more than a thousand words. For a moment, Hermione felt something rise inside of her which struggled with years of obedience. She looked the teacher in the eyes. 

"I trust your words that Ron is not in any kind of danger." It was all she dared to say in front of Ron, who would face alone whatever treatment or examination the teacher did not want her to observe. She sat back on the edge of his bed and half-hugged him. "It will be fine. I'll see you tomorrow," she said gently, trying to keep her voice from shaking. 

Ron blushed and awkwardly pulled his pyjama top shut. "Sure. I mean, you are not worried, are you?" he said, obviously embarrassed by his own misgivings at being subjected to whatever Flamel had in mind.

Hermione shook her head, gave him a parting smile, then rose to leave. In an alcove of the hospital room, Madam Pomfrey and Nicholas Flamel were busying themselves with some unknown devices, their backs towards the room so their actions could not be observed. Whatever he was doing with his hands, the alchemist was at the same time croaking in his broken, shaky voice: "_Il duol infrange, queste ritorte, de' miei martiri sol per pieta, si_!"

Hermione did not find his singing very reassuring. Before she walked through the door, she turned around for a last look at the Head of her house. Professor McGonagall flinched. With a sudden shock, Hermione realised that between the lines of the words she had actually spoken, she had warned the teacher to assure Ron's safety, had almost threatened her – and that Professor McGonagall took her warning seriously.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A glance from a window in the Gryffindor common room told Hermione that although dusk had already fallen, Quidditch practice had not finished yet; on the magically lit pitch, seven players dressed in scarlet were still whirling about. Trying to ignore the dread filling her stomach when she saw the _reserve_ Keeper in front of the hoops, she forced herself back to her Arithmancy book and took some notes. When she walked up to the window for the fourth time, she was rewarded: The pitch had finally emptied. The logical thing to do would be to wait until Harry had changed and returned to the common room. However, her need to talk to someone was bigger than her patience, so she walked down to the entrance hall to wait for him there, as she was not permitted to walk out to the pitch by herself for security reasons.

The hall was dimly lit, the staircase in gloomy darkness. Hermione crouched down on the bottom stair and hugged her knees to stop herself from shivering. Moments passed like eons; although she kept reminding herself that it would take the Quidditch team a while to shower and change, her dread increased. Finally she heard voices –coming not from the castle's door, but from the staircase behind her.

"A potion to block the torrent? That would be marvellous indeed." Hermione recognised the voice, although she could not immediately place it. Her heart missed a beat; the man had to be talking about Ron.

"I can certainly attempt it." Immediately, she recognised this tone of pompous modesty as Snape's. "All I have to do is turn chaos into matter, and then combine this substance with a few well-chosen regulating concoctions."

The other voice snorted. "All you have to do, indeed. Don't pretend you are giving away information here, Severus – I am perfectly aware that you are not. They were not exaggerating when they warned me you were secretive and never more cooperative than you absolutely have to be." _Ambrose Curtis_, Hermione realised – the other voice belonged to her fellow League member, to the wizard who had recently started teaching her Defence Against the Dark Arts class combat magic.

"I should be, and so should you, given your profession," Snape said dryly and slightly condescendingly. Then, without a change of tone, he added: "By the way, Miss Granger, I remember clearly that you were sent back to your studies, not to sit here on the staircase. Will you please explain what you are doing here?" 

Hermione got up so quickly that she almost tripped over her own feet. Before she could steady herself enough to reply, Ambrose Curtis said nonchalantly: "When did Hogwarts establish a rule against sitting on the stairs before bedtime, Severus?"

Snape hesitated very slightly. "You heard Professor McGonagall's words, Miss Granger," he snarled, neglecting to answer Curtis' question or indeed to address him. "Return to your common room _now_."

Knowing that Snape was not in the right, that she had not really broken any rule and that up until bedtime, she could hang around in the entrance hall all she liked, gave a vague satisfaction to Hermione, especially as Curtis seemed to know this, too. The dark-skinned wizard sat down on the stairs himself, blocking the way up with his long legs. Though his face lay in darkness, Hermione could see him fold his arms across his chest and turn his face up at Snape. "So what is it you wanted to tell me, Severus?" he asked.

Snape's frustration was palpable; obviously he had walked Curtis down to the entrance hall for some tête-à-tête conversation, and was now challenged to enforce a rule that did not exist just to get Hermione out of the way. Although she knew the Potions Master would probably make her pay for his defeat during her next Potions class, Hermione had to admire the way Curtis handled Snape, especially when the teacher replied with venom in his voice: "I believe I am needed upstairs," then turned on his heels and swept up the stairs

Ambrose Curtis slapped his hand on the stair he was sitting on, then moved aside to make room for Hermione. She sat and waited for him to speak.

"You are worried about your friend," Curtis said in a low voice, making allowance for the fact that it was easy to overhear conversations in the entrance hall.

"What do you know about this – matter?" Hermione asked, not only in an attempt to elicit information, but also because she wanted to know why Curtis knew anything about it at all. Certainly they would not have to _combat_ with Ron's condition?

"Oh, they called me here because they felt they needed my opinion on something," Curtis replied softly, waving his hand vertically as if to downplay his own importance.

A realisation struck Hermione. "You are the Unspeakable, then," she whispered, awed.

Ambrose Curtis chuckled. "Seems you have ways and means of finding things out," he said, which Hermione took as an affirmation.

"So what do you _do_?" she asked, knowing at the same time that it was a stupid question to utter.

Again, Curtis emitted a low laugh. "Oh, I put my feet up, sip Pina Colada and pretend that I am really important. – At least that's what many people think."

Sure, he couldn't talk about his job; not even Mr. Weasley knew what Unspeakables did. Could he talk about the things that had just passed in the hospital wing? Common sense told Hermione that an Unspeakable wouldn't go about blabbing out major secrets even to a fellow League member; however, her worries about Ron were stronger than her common sense. "What's going on here, then?" she asked him. "What are they doing up there with Ron? What's wrong with him?"

Curtis sighed. "There's a few things I can't reveal to you, I am afraid. However, as I see you are very worried about your friend, I suppose it would not hurt to tell you that...." He stopped short when the front door opened. Wet and tired, bundles of muddy scarlet robes under their arms, the Gryffindor Quidditch team entered, Harry among them. They all greeted Ambrose Curtis and Hermione, eyeing them a bit suspiciously because they had been sitting on the twilit stairs together. A look at Rhonda Celp's face told Hermione that the whole school would be buzzing with filthy rumours by tomorrow if she did not manage to immediately convince her house mates they had been talking about school things. Curtis apparently had come to the same conclusion; he nodded to the team, then, as if he was concluding a sentence, said to Hermione: 

"So you see, the danger of being hit with an _Eliminatus_ practically approaches zero. To perform that kind of curse on a human, you need not only an immense magical strength, but also an exceptional focus. Now, _if_, as you said, several attackers combine their strength to perform an _Eliminatus curse, the focus becomes the problem: They would need someone who'd be able to channel that kind of energy, to bundle it like a prism bundles light. And, as I said earlier, no human would survive channelling such an enormous amount of magical strength. That's why I believe using the __Eliminatus as a combat weapon against humans is virtually impossible."_

Hermione caught on quickly: He was paraphrasing a prolonged conversation on a scientific topic which they were supposed to have had while sitting next to each other on a darkened staircase. Probably Curtis was not only protecting her reputation, but also his – as an Unspeakable, who had been on the verge of revealing information to her, but also as a man, almost a teacher, who might be suspected of getting into a forbidden romantic situation with a student. Recognising this course of action as, well, prudent, she nodded in all the right places and had a suitable question formulated as soon as he stopped talking:

"Yes, that's all very reassuring, but say you use an _Eliminatus_ not on a human, but on a thing or a living being, say, a plant or a small animal. What happens then? Will it....?" She left it to Curtis to finish her sentence, as she did not really have an idea what he was talking about.

"Yes, it will disappear, but where to, and whether it just dissolves into thin air, we don't know. There have been experiments which –"

"As much as I hate to disrupt your scientific discussion, which no doubt is very interesting to you," Rhonda interrupted rather impatiently, "but will you brainy folks please let us pass so we can go up the staircase? We are only a simple Quidditch team, very wet and very tired." 

"Come to think of it, why are you having it on the stairs?" said one of the younger boys who were trying to replace the notorious Weasley twins on the Beater positions. Hermione realised with a slight shock that she did not even know his name.

Again, it was Curtis who saved the situation. "Er, I'm not quite sure – we met by chance, and then Miss Granger said she had a question about magical defence, and then, er, I suppose we just sat down, because it took some time to answer the question appropriately, and then, er...." He let his voice trail off, acting the intellectual geek rather well, Hermione thought. Then Ambrose Curtis took a look at his wristwatch, made a surprised noise, rose and awkwardly straightened out the wrinkles in his robes. "Well, it's kind of late – I suppose I better head home," he said. "Goodnight everybody." And with a parting nod to the students, he walked off and out the door, heading, as Hermione was sure, to the League camp hidden by a Parallelus charm on the Hogwarts grounds. Of course leaving was a smart move, Hermione thought; however, she ardently wished he had managed to tell her what he had been on the verge of saying when the team had come in.

She followed the others up to the tower, knowing she would have to lure Harry away to catch him on his own later. She let him go up to his dormitory to dispose of his dirty robes and waited for him to return so she could share her worries about Ron. In the meantime, she proof-read her Potions essay and her Arithmancy notes. When Harry had not returned from upstairs after twenty minutes, however, she was starting to wonder whether he would return to the common room at all. Forbidden to check on him, she asked Neville to look where he had gone. Neville returned with the information that Harry had fallen asleep on his four-poster in his clothes and would probably not wake up unless shaken. Declining Neville's offer of violently disturbing Harry's early sleep, Hermione chose an armchair next to the fireplace for a solitary evening of homework and worries. Again and again she wondered what the alchemist was doing to her friend, and which mysterious evil was at work in Ron. Only long after all the other Gryffindors had gone to bed, did she decide that the time when Professor McGonagall might inform her of an emergency had long since passed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry found her in her armchair before six o'clock the next morning; obviously he had woken as early as he had fallen asleep. Making up for his unintended negligence of the night before, he asked about her and about Ron as soon as Hermione had rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. As the common room was still devoid of other curious listeners, Hermione quietly told him what had passed the afternoon before. Instantly, Harry was beside himself with worry; besides uttering his surprise that Nicholas Flamel was still among the living and that Ambrose Curtis was one of the notorious Unspeakables, he insisted they should go to the hospital wing immediately to inquire about Ron. Hermione shook off her fatigue and followed him out through the portrait hole. However, the two of them found the door to the hospital wing still locked from the night before; nobody answered their knocking. 

"I want to know what's going on," Harry said, sounding very upset. "We've _got_ to get in there. They've _got_ to tell us what's wrong with him." 

"Harry, it's really early, and perhaps Ron needs his sleep." Hermione hardly believed her own words, but thought it advisable to discourage Harry from breaking into the hospital wing. 

"Let's ask Sirius then," Harry replied, bouncing up and down with anxious impatience. "He's a Spellsearcher, so he's bound to know more about whatever they are talking about." He turned on his heel and started towards the castle's west wing.

"Harry, it's kind of early, and anyway, Sirius won't be able to tell us what an Unspeakable does, either," Hermione insisted, but as Harry did not slow his pace, she felt she had no choice but to follow him.

"Harry, let's eat an early breakfast and then see if Madam Pomfrey will tell us more," Hermione pleaded as she hastened after him along the corridors leading towards Sirius' quarters. "It's really very early, Harry, so why don't we just wait and –" It was no use; Harry almost ran towards Sirius' rooms, the worries in his heart making it seem like he was running on overcharged batteries. Hermione could not stop him from opening the door to Sirius' room with his wand and entering, so she followed him. When Harry made a strange, choked noise, it took her a second to see what was the matter with him: 

It wasn't Harry's godfather lying in Sirius' bed, but a black-haired and, it seemed, naked woman! On second sight, the woman was Hermione's and Harry's Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher who was snuggled against a large, black, sleeping dog. Harry turned on his heel and left the room, slamming the door behind him. Hermione saw Professor Varlerta blink at her, pull the blanket up to her ears and then give the animal next to her a good shake. It seemed a good idea to quickly leave the room as well, Hermione decided; as she closed the door behind her, she heard Varlerta complain in a half-mocking voice: "Morgana's ass, Sirius, you smell like a dog in the morning."

Hermione sped down the corridor to find Harry, who had obviously wished to put some distance between himself and his dogfather, er, godfather. When she saw him standing in a corner, looking defiant and a bit sulky, she wondered what to say to him. 'Don't tell me you didn't notice' might not be the most diplomatic address right now, she decided.

For a moment, Harry and Hermione just stared at each other. Finally, Hermione broke the silence.

"Are you angry at him?" she asked for lack of a better thing to say.

"She's our _teacher_," Harry replied glumly. 

Hermione put a lot of effort into not breaking out in laughter. "So who else was he supposed to hook up with while he was trapped here at school?" she asked. "It's not like he's had much choice around here. Also, he's a grown man and can probably look after himself and make his own decisions, don't you think so?" 

"But she's our _teacher_," Harry repeated dully, reddening a bit.

"So? Do you think teachers don't have sex lives?" Hermione blurted out. Then she wished she could take back her words. As friends, Harry and Ron were fine, but certain subjects seemed to belong to girl talk repertoire only. _Sex_, for example, was a word she had probably never even uttered in the presence of Harry and Ron. Banning a sudden flood of Ron-related anxiety to the near future, she returned to the problem at hand. "I mean, maybe they, er, like each other and everything," she concluded rather weakly.

"As a _dog_?" Harry retorted rather loudly. 

Hermione felt herself blush. "I'm sure there's an innocent explanation," she replied a quite feebly. "By the way, there he is. I'm sure he wants to talk to you."

Harry turned to see Sirius approaching in the hallway – wizard-shaped, dressed (though his robes were turned inside out), and looking very embarrassed. Hermione sensed that the conversation Harry was likely to have with his godfather would be sufficiently difficult without her, so she decided to let them talk on their own. "I'll see you at the hospital wing in a little while, Harry," she whispered. "Just make sure you two leave this hallway soon in case someone comes along so nobody sees him." Then she took off, substituting one kind of trouble with another. 

The tireless Madam Pomfrey had by now opened up the door and looked after her patient; Ron was propped up in bed, drinking a cup of tea. Hermione was incredibly relieved to find him conscious and obviously no worse than the evening before. When he spotted her, he beckoned her towards him. Hermione shot a questioning look at the matron, who permitted her to enter with a shrug.

"Are you alright?" she asked as she sat down on Flamel's empty armchair.

Ron shrugged. "Like last night, I suppose."

"What did they do, then? Flamel and Curtis, I mean? Did they cast any complicated spells or attempt any kind of cure?" She really wanted to know things like 'did they hurt you?' and 'did they tell you what they found out?' but didn't dare ask under the matron's watchful stare.

"I dunno," Ron murmured, looking a bit confused. "I think they didn't – did you say Curtis?" He frowned. "Was he here?"

"Wasn't he?" Hermione asked.

Again, Ron shrugged, displaying another example of the indifference that alarmed Hermione so much. "I wouldn't know," he said. "They gave me a potion after you left, and I slept until this morning."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hermione managed to grab some breakfast for Harry and her just before classes started. She arrived at the Charms classroom just in time; Harry was a minute late and had to formally apologise to Professor Flitwick. When he saw her, he mouthed "Ron?" at her; she pointed her thumb up as a reply which was probably too optimistic but better than causing Harry more worries. Then both of them had to concentrate on the lesson. Between practising rather complicated _Systemus_ charms, commanding a stack of books to sort itself into a shelf either by alphabet, size or subject area, both students managed to now and then sneak a bite off their sandwiches. If Flitwick noticed they were catching up on a meal, he did not comment. Only after the lesson had finished did Hermione manage to relate to Harry the few things she had found out about Ron.

On their way down to Professor McGonagall's classroom, Harry suddenly muttered: "He didn't really ... I mean, he says he sometimes sleeps in the shape of a dog to avoid having nightmares. He says he sometimes dreams about Azkaban, and then he screams and wakes _her_ up, and as a dog he doesn't dream much. It seems they ... I mean, they have been a couple for a while, and he didn't tell me because – I don't know why, actually. Don't you think he should have told me? I mean –" 

She bumped her elbow into his side and mouthed "McGonagall", because she sensed their professor behind them. However, the teacher passed by without showing the slightest interest in them; Hermione realised that Professor McGonagall was as pale as death and shaking slightly. The teacher ordered the diminished group of Gryffindors trying to get a NEWTs degree in Transfiguration to open the Standard Book of Spells, Year Six, and to answer the first three end-of-unit test-yourself questionnaires in it, something she had never had them do before; she would collect the results afterwards, she said. The class was quietly outraged; unannounced tests of that magnitude were not Professor McGonagall's usual style. With a shaky hand, Hermione finished the task in twenty minutes' time and then discretely studied the teacher. There was something decidedly wrong with her; Professor McGonagall looked _scared_. Hermione feared the worst; she could barely stop herself from walking up to the teacher's desk and asking her whether something was wrong with Ron.

After Professor McGonagall had collected the students' answers, she closed her class a few minutes early and hurried off in the direction of the hospital wing. Exchanging whispered words about their misgivings at the teacher's obvious dismay, Harry and Hermione followed her. From afar, they could hear the alchemist sing at top of his off-key voice: "Remember me, remember me, but oh, forget my fate." Hermione feared the worst; she broke into a run. 

The first thing she saw when she entered the room was a curtain drawn around a bed, a sign that a patient needed special protection. She almost screamed out until the rational part of her mind told her that it was not Ron's bed which had been closed off; his was on the other side of the room. And, yes, Ron was still in his bed, blinking sheepishly at his over-excited friends. 

From the curtains, Nicholas Flamel emerged, holding a strange crystal instrument. He was followed by a heavily wrinkled, sexless human being who had to be at least as old as he – his wife Perenelle, Hermione concluded. Both joined Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, Snape and Madam Pomfrey at the large, round table by the window. Nobody appeared to have noticed Harry and Hermione, perhaps because they were all visibly upset.

"There is no telling what exactly triggered it," Perenelle Flamel said as if in reply to some question. "We could, of course, try examining all the other victims to find similarities – the acute cases, those where the missile seems to lie dormant, and those who seem to be weakened by it. However, it may take a while to find a pattern."

Hermione noticed that Dumbledore emitted a silent sigh; they were talking about him, too, she realised.

"She shot it straight at my face," Professor McGonagall whispered in a tearful voice and dabbed at her eyes. "A student has tried to kill me. I'll never forget this as long as I live." 

"As the Head of her house, I can assure you it was nothing personal, Minerva," Snape said flatly, rather defending the house of Slytherin than comforting Professor McGonagall, Hermione thought. "Like all the other victims, Miss Ailis has become a danger to this school. We have to assure they are isolated and de-wanded until I can complete the potion I am working on, which will at least weaken them so they cannot harm anyone. The _students_, I mean," he specified his comment with a sidelong glance at Dumbledore.

"Hast thou informed the king of this sorry business, my boy?" Nicholas Flamel asked Professor Dumbledore gravely.

Perenelle slapped his wrist with her withered hand. "Oh, live in the present, Nick! There is no king right now, only a Queen, and she's a _Muggle_. The person to talk to would be the Minister of Magic, right?"


	14. Varlerta

14 – Varlerta 

Fudge condescends to come by the day after the second Ice Missile victim has attempted a death curse. Personally, I'd say Fudge is one of the last people we should ask for help in this affair; however, there seems to be a little problem in temporarily de-wanding people, even if they are only students. The snapping of a wand is one of the worst punishments witches and wizards can be subjected to, though I should think most would prefer it to being sent to Azkaban. As a temporary de-wanding somehow has the reek of a formal conviction, it seems that British magical laws permit it only if it is accompanied with an appropriate bulk of bureaucracy. Therefore, to stop our students from shooting death curses until we have found a cure for them, we must ask Fudge's permission.

Dumbledore calls for a staff meeting in his office. Present are the Headmaster, looking sicker than ever, Minerva, Verus, Heather, Chent, Cosinus, Remus – not as a teacher, but as a representative of the victims, a smart move of Dumbledore, I think. Then there's Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel, my combat expert Curtis, although this time his other expertise is required, and of course bowler-hatted Fudge himself. Oh yes, and my presence is also required, unfortunately.

The meeting seems to be more about paragraphs and regulations than about the fates of a number of people. Every now and then, Fudge employs the fireplace to consult with two barrister lackeys from the Ministry who talk as if they had personally invented bureaucracy. They suggest not a temporary de-wanding, but locking up the injured students at St. Mungo's. Also, they demand a thorough investigation of the legal issues involved in two minors shooting unsuccessful Unforgivable Curses under the influence of an unspecified evil force. My head buzzes, and when the meeting is adjourned to give the barristers time for further consultation, I am relieved even though no solution is found. As soon as I can make my excuses, I do, feeling a bit guilty about not staying with Lupin and Dumbledore who try to keep Fudge from commanding dreadful things to happen. I don't want to seem unconcerned about the students and their mysterious disease – as a matter of fact, far from being unconcerned, I am extremely worried. However, spending time in the vicinity of Fudge, watching how he handles the people he must consider scum, people like Verus, Remus and me, for example, is nothing short of a trial. I explain that I have tomorrow's lessons to prepare and head off for my place, not the least because I know Sirius will be dying to find out whether there is any news, and that he can't very well come by and ask as long as Fudge is there.

I find him on his favourite sofa in the music lab, reading the _Daily Prophet_, as usual. As soon as I come in, he almost jumps up from his seat, pulls me towards him onto the sofa and starts questioning me. I report as well as I can, telling him of my distaste for Fudge, which I know he shares, but, alas, also betraying my relief about Verus reporting his progress on a potion that at least seems to buy us some time. 

"Trust that scum to make himself popular with Fudge," Sirius spits bitterly. "Order of Merlin, that's what he still wants, and if Dumbledore didn't know ways to stop him, he'd betray me any day. As it is, he's bragging about his shnirking potion achievements."

I should know it is no use trying to further peace between the two, but against my better knowledge I object rather lamely: "I don't think that's it, I just think he's trying to help until Flamel gets his stuff together."

Sirius remains unconvinced. "Yeah, right, help. The only person Snape has ever helped in any way is his own sweet self, the slimy git. He doesn't give a damn whether these students live, die or become killing machines as long as he can work it to his own advantage." 

I believe in my heart he's wrong, but of course I can't prove it. As Sirius' words bother me nevertheless, I change tactics; I ask him: "Why do you hate him so much? Maybe I would understand your grudge better if I knew what he's done to you." 

Sirius' eyes darken further; after a moment's hesitation, he hisses: "Because he's so repulsive, that's why – repulsive, nosy and obtrusive. He used to follow us around when we were students – spying on us and staring at us from afar. Obsessed he was, obsessed with James, I guess, the bloody faggot." His face assumes an expression of utmost disgust.

These things sometimes happen. You think you know someone, know him well, like him well – shnirk, Sirius is my _lover. I pinch myself in the thigh to keep my temper in check. Breathe first, think second, do not speak until the first two are accomplished, I tell myself. I'm tempted to tell him __there's no such thing as the word 'faggot' in my house, tell him in a very annoying, teacherly fashion, but I manage to check myself, if only because by uttering the word myself I would be belying my own statement. I try to remind myself that Sirius spent most of his adult life in prison, and that he may not have very sophisticated views on a few things. I tell myself that self-indulgent lecturing is never a good means to resolve a conflict. I pinch myself in the leg again._

Noticing my silence, Sirius needles me: "What, you don't think that's disgusting?"

"Nope, I don't," I say rather abruptly, I'm afraid. Then I try to explain, as patiently as my temper lets me: "Sirius, one of the things I really, really hate in this world is homophobia. Loads of my friends and acquaintances are gays and lesbians and transgender and whatnot. I do not see a thing in the world that's disgusting or wrong about it. Think of Roary and Pat – would you call them disgusting, too?"

Sirius has the good grace to blush. "I didn't mean that gay people are disgusting," he objects. "I don't mind Roary and Pat at all, they are nice enough. It's just that –" he pauses, "that _Snape was so disgusting. I mean, he __followed us. Everywhere we went, that creep popped up out of nowhere, watching us. He must have been in love with James, or maybe even with me, or something of that kind." He shudders. "James found him just as repulsive as I did. It's true, we played a couple of rather unkind tricks on him, but who wouldn't? It was all we could do to get rid of him."_

"Which apparently you eventually managed," I reply. "Or did he ever – you know, touch any of you in any way you disliked?" A jolt of fear creeps into my heart, but dies when Sirius shakes his head.

"He certainly didn't, never ever, we wouldn't have let him, the slimy little worm," he replies with a contemptuous laugh.

I am relieved, but not satisfied. "What is it, then? I still see no reason why you should hate him so much now. You're certainly beyond teenage intolerance, aren't you? And if he really was in love with you or James, perhaps by rejecting him you hurt him far more than he ever hurt you." That's probably putting things kindly. I have no clear idea about what kind of tricks he is talking about, but if _he calls them 'rather unkind', something tells me he is not exaggerating. However, I suppose that's water under the bridge and therefore not really any of my business. _

Do I believe him? Do I think it likely that Verus is gay? I'm not sure. Something inside doesn't want to, I admit. I tell myself that it's none of my shnirking business, that I should regard Verus' sexual preferences with the same disinterested respect as I regard, say, Pat's; I tell myself that speaking of water under the bridge, my own teenage crush should be well overcome by now. I tell myself that I _have a lover, who, in spite of having said something quite objectionable a minute ago, is a very sweet and wonderful guy._

Seeing that I am upset, Sirius says with a sigh: "You're probably right. At first he never really hurt us in any way, except for being a pain in the – well, being a pain, anyway. Later, he tried to get us expelled, but, er, maybe he had some reasons for that." He blushes and avoids my eyes for a second. "I just don't like him and never will – I find simply everything about him objectionable, so I don't understand why you seem not to mind him, but maybe we just have to agree that we can disagree. His, er, preferences are none of my business, I suppose."

Stupidly, my eyes fill with tears. I snap my fingers to magically suppress them. However, Sirius sees how upset I am, so he tells me he is sorry without arguing any further; a second later, he takes me in his arms. He strokes my hair, then my shoulders, managing quite well to comfort me. After a while, his hands stray off to the magical, self-closing zipper on the back of my robe. I suppose I'm encouraging this kind of behaviour; the moment of reconciliation after a lover's quarrel can be a rather sweet one. However, probably a second before things would have become, well, really private, there's a sharp rap on the door; before I can tell whoever is out there to come back, let's make it in an hour, someone enters unbidden. Speaking of the devil – it is none other than Hogwarts' honourable Potions master himself, his face expressionless, but his eyes shooting well-calculated darts of poison.

"Professor, Mr. Black? As deeply as I regret interrupting your intimate tête-à-tête, I am afraid you may have urgent business to attend to," he announces rather pompously. 

Judging from his facial expression, there are probably plenty of things in the world he deeply regrets, but interrupting our 'intimate tête-à-tête' certainly isn't one of them. I suppose I am making some kind of face. "So what's up, Verus?" I ask, blatantly disregarding his annoying habit of calling me 'Professor' since I offended him earlier this year.

"You are both wanted in the Headmaster's office," Snape reports formally as if delivering BBC or at least WWN news. "I am afraid that Mr. Lupin has just murdered the Minister of Magic."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We run rather than walk up to Dumbledore's office, Sirius in the shape of a dog – Verus has had the acidic kindness of reminding him of that little detail because Sirius himself surely would not have thought of camouflage. While running towards the castle, I am frantically tapping my back with my wand, trying to make that stupid zipper close, a feeble attempt to preserve a sliver of my dignity. After Verus tells the gargoyle to 'Every Flavour Bean' itself rather rudely, we arrive at the scene of the crime.

Picture Dumbledore behind his desk, sunken into his chair like a puppet whose strings have been cut, at his side Professor McGonagall, helplessly patting his hand. Picture Remus on a chair next to the window, his face ashen like his hair, his eyes devoid of life. Picture Fudge lying motionless on the floor, a heap of Muggle suit, lime green bowler hat and faintly bluish skin. Yes, he does look dead, but then again, nobody in the room looks particularly alive at that moment.

The dog at my side makes a decidedly strange noise in the back of his throat, then darts towards Lupin and transforms. Sirius the wizard grabs Remus by the shoulder and shouts in his face: "Moony!!" He pulls him towards him and embraces him rather roughly. Showing the first sign of life since we have arrived, Remus emits a little laugh that is beyond bitterness. 

"Hey, Padfoot," he says hoarsely, "we always thought it would come to this, didn't we – that I'd end up as a murderer. We just believed it would happen the other way."

"This is not your fault, Moony!" Sirius shouts and gives Remus a less-than-soothing shake. "You are not a murderer! This is not your fault!"

"Ice Missile?" I dare to inquire after I have finally managed to close my zipper with my back to the wall. Verus nods, his face betraying no spark of interest.

"Who knows about this?" I ask him, trying to figure out what to do about this catastrophe, hoping that there is something we still _can _do, and that the Aurors aren't already on their way.

"Nobody but the people in this room," Verus replies very matter-of-factly, "but somebody is bound to miss him soon." With a slightly derogatory wave of his hand, he indicates Fudge's body.

"You don't think we could get a fair trial for Remus which takes into account that he was acting under an unknown force?" I ask, trying to remain optimistic.

Verus shakes his head. "Not for a werewolf. Azkaban if he's lucky, instant silver bullet if they want to get him for this with werewolf laws," he mumbles. I notice no trace of smugness in his voice.

"No!!" Sirius practically screams, looking like an incarnation of irrationality. "He's not going to Azkaban, and they are not going to – they are not getting him, I swear to you, they are not _getting him!!"_

While Remus soothingly pats Sirius on the arm, Verus crosses his arms in front of his chest and says in a low voice: "You _are_ in a hurry to let the whole castle know what happened, Black, aren't you?"

I suppose it's rather Remus' calming noises than Verus' stinging remark that cause Sirius to be quiet for now.

"We have to get him out of here in a hurry," I remark, stating the obvious. Then I see Verus twist something between his fingers. It is Remus' wand, I realise. 

"As a werewolf and under Ice Missile influence, he is not safe running around on his own," Verus remarks matter-of-factly.

Without hesitation, Sirius whirls around. I notice he is very pale, with two sickly, red stains on his cheeks.

"He won't be on his own," he states as if talking about a fact. "I'll go with him and take care of him wherever he goes." He turns back to Remus. "I'll just go and get Buckbeak and make sure you are safe."

For a fraction of a second, the strangest smile flits over Remus' eyes; he says: "This is nonsense, my friend – they want me, not you." Then, noticing the absurdity of his remark, he sadly shakes his head. 

"If they search the castle for you, they'd better not find me here either," Sirius replies, the most sensible thing he has said since he has entered Dumbledore's office. "We're in this together." 

The idea of being two 'murderers' on the run seems to have an odd, almost adolescent kind of appeal to him; while he assures Remus that he will share his exile, he looks quite boyish in his sincerity, and, I admit it, irresistibly attractive. I realise that his buoyant way of committing himself is one of the main reasons I am in love with him, very much in love right now, in fact; but at the same time, I can't help thinking: _Hey, what about me?_ I know when he talks about leaving he is proposing the only sensible solution to the problem at hand, but I feel there is more than sensibility at work here. 

Personal feelings aside, something has to be done, and very quickly, too. Sending the two of them off on the Hippogriff is out of question; the same goes for hiding them somewhere on the premises. I briefly consider giving them Drifter, but dismiss it – just like Buckbeak, the car is far too conspicuous. What I think of is Muggle transportation – a plane to take them to the continent, better even, a jumbo jet that goes across the ocean, if such a thing is possible. A jumbo jet means passports and Muggle money. The latter I can supply; the passports – well, I know who I can ask, at least.

"They will need Polyjuice Potion," I tell Verus. "Can you supply that?" 

He stares at me for a while; I wonder whether he will give me any kind of crap about such a potion taking a month of preparations. As far as I know, he's keeping a ready-made emergency supply of all kinds of substances in his subterranean treasure chests.

Finally he nods. "Twenty minutes," he replies.

"I will need a supply of Wolfsbane Potion, too," Remus almost whispers.

"Half an hour, then," he corrects himself, and takes off into the direction of the dungeon. 

I run down to the League camp as fast as I can, hurry through the tunnel and see who I can get to help me. Florean and Penthesilea are in London, it seems, and Ambrose doesn't have the contacts I need; Lucy Callahan, however, tells me she'll have the documents and corresponding hair up at Dumbledore's office in fifteen minutes. She'll also get me the plane tickets on short notice, she says, and no problem that I want two tickets from Edinburgh Airport to New York for _today – she'll get some, period. That's one of the things I admire about the League – they are so _efficient_. Whatever they do, they do it quickly and properly. Officially being friends with a high-status League member can be an asset, I admit, at least as long as you don't look like you are using them for your own purposes. This, however, is an emergency, something Lucy understands well._

I run over to my place to gather things they might need, most notably money and a few useful addresses. Then I dash to the Spellsearchers' quarters, cram most of their clothes and some random personal belongings in a Shrink Bag, add the Invisibility Cloak (sorry 'bout that, Harry!) and rush back in the direction of the two wizards who need to flee from the scene of crime so very urgently.

In the corridor, I hear an eerie, low voice: "Doom has come upon us. A murder has taken place in this castle. The walls are splattered with blood. Doom has come upon us. A murder has taken place in this castle. The walls are splattered ...." Oh, shnirk. The Bloody Baron. I stop dead in my tracks.

"Will you _shut up?" I hiss to the blood-covered Slytherin ghost, convinced that it is not a good idea to spread the news of Fudge's demise among the students before we have sorted things out. "Besides, there is no blood, so hold your bloody tongue!"_

"Doom has come upon us," he insists, a bit miffed. "How can it be that you dare to speak up against me, Valerie Riddle, my own flesh and blood?"

"Flesh and blood, my arse," I snort before I can check myself, considering that he has neither. (Nor does he, come to think of it, possess a rear end.) However, wishing to silence him in a hurry, I continue: "I acknowledge no family ties with you, Marvolo, not now and not ever, and if you do not shut up straight away, I will...." Stupidly, I wave my wand at him, wondering what I could possibly do to him. Then I remember that I have no time to think up a punishment for a ghost, that letting him blab about the murder is a risk I will have to take. After raising a pointless warning finger at him as a kind of farewell, I turn on my heels and run off to Dumbledore's office.

In there, the transformation has already taken place; besides Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall, who are conversing in low voices, I meet two perfect strangers staring down at Fudge's body. Verus is conspicuously absent.

"Did he give you enough potion to make it through the flight?" I ask. One of the men nods and shows me a hip flask. I find it irritating that I do not know whether he's Sirius or Remus. Somehow my lover has disappeared without bidding me farewell.

"Let's get out of here," I say. "If somebody got wind of what happened, they will be here any minute." Unforgivable Curses can usually be detected from afar by the Ministry officials; if not for Hogwarts' magic-loaded atmosphere, they would have been here immediately.

"I didn't even say goodbye to Harry," the uglier of the two men says. It must be Sirius, then, who finally remembers that Remus Lupin is not, in fact, the only human being in the world.

"You can write to him," I say and thrust the Shrink Bag into his hand. "We have no time to lose." I practically push him towards the door; Remus (I suppose it's him) follows. We rush towards Drifter and I see that I get the car into the air and turn us invisible as fast as I can.

The journey across, or rather above Scotland takes us very little time, as Drifter can fly immensely fast if it wants to. Sure, it's not like Apparating – we could talk, make plans, exchange words of love and promise each other a number of things, but we do not. I have Drifter drop us off inconspicuously at a Muggle-less corner – no time to bother with airport parking systems – and rush them toward the BA counter. The two strangers show their passports, borrowed Muggle documents they will probably simply mail back once they have arrived. The woman behind the counter gives them their tickets and tells them to hurry because the plane is almost ready for take-off. We do another little sprint to reach the terminal, where Remus' and Sirius' assumed names are called out: They are waiting for them.

Sirius hugs me and kisses me. It feels strange, not only because he looks different, because he's speaking to me in a stranger's voice; what's worse is that he smells, that he tastes differently. I try not to let it show, but I don't feel like I'm kissing someone I know. The stranger tells me he loves me and promises me he will return. I promise him I will wait for him. Someone from the airport staff yells at us; Remus beckons from behind a barrier. Sirius hands over the borrowed passport, is ushered through the barrier and waves to me one last time. Then he is gone.


	15. Draco

15 – Draco 

The news found him in the middle of Quodpot practise. The Inostranits were practicing the alien discipline in the hope that their performance at Boston Magical High School next spring would not be more than moderately embarrassing. Of course, that meant taking precious time off Quidditch practice, but as much as Draco did not want the Inostranits to come in last in the Durmstrang Quidditch competition, he realised that international contacts were crucial. Quodpot was important, not as a game – Draco thought that in fact it was not only boring, but bordered on the mindless – but as a means of proving to the Americans that Durmstrang's Inostranit House were worth their friendship. 

Glad to be rid of it, Draco passed the Quod to Mejsje, a tall, blonde reserve Beater of the Inostranit Quidditch team. Due to a Quodpot team consisting of eleven, not of seven members, and as injuries were frequent, anyone who had so  much as ever touched a Quaffle had been required to play. As a consequence, not only mindless idiots like Crabbe and Goyle were on the pitch, but also untalented nothings like Mejsje. Draco sighed inwardly. He could not entirely deny it: Sometimes he missed the glorious Slytherin Quidditch team with their sleek brooms and there long tradition of winning the Quidditch cup. Durmstrang had its points, of course, its political orientation being the chief one; up close, however, the medieval Russian castle looked gloomy, felt chilly and was very far from home indeed.

Just when the mediwizard led the noseless, bloodied and blackened Mejsje off the storm-beaten Quidditch pitch, Draco's team captain Rechter turned towards him with a smirk. "So what do you say about the assassination in your home?" he asked.

Draco's heart missed a beat: His home? Had something happened to his father? He was dying to find out, but he wouldn't let on that he had no idea what Rechter was talking about. The self-assured German, Draco knew, would find ways to take advantage of his ignorance. So he only shrugged and said: "Shnirk happens."

Rechter, who, Draco suspected, had not yet figured out the meaning of the word 'shnirk' yet, snorted. "You don't think it is a shame?" he asked, mutilating each single diphthong as always.

Draco felt a strong urge to ask directly, or better, to torture Rechter until he emitted information indiscriminately, but resisted. "Depends on the perspective," he replied ominously.

"Heard your father was going for the office now," Rechter said with his eyebrows raised. Draco felt a surge of relief. His father seemed to be alive. Of course, it was getting more and more difficult to sound knowing and neutral at the same time; his tool, as always, was a sceptic kind of aloofness. What kind of office might Rechter be talking about?

"Might be, but then again, he still has to figure out whether it's worth it. If I was him, I'd reconsider long and hard, and that's what I told him when he asked me for my opinion. What would you say?" Draco had to congratulate himself on his smart move. While claiming that not only had he talked about the unknown matter at hand with his father, but that Lucius Malfoy had actually asked his only son's opinion – something he would never really do, but what did Rechter know – while claiming all that, he had still asked Rechter a question that might yield more information.

The German bit his bottom lip in an unbecoming way. Thinking did not suit him. He might be a good Quidditch player, but he wasn't anything like a 'poet or philosopher', that much was certain.

"Minister of Magic? Hm, I should reckon it might be an interesting position, in terms of power, I mean. Mind you, some positions may be more profitable than serving the people –" Rechter snorted, showing his disdain for serving anyone but the elite even among wizards, "but for a start...."

Minister of Magic. Fudge had been killed by some unknown assassinator, and his father was running for the office. Draco found it hard to hide his emotions – the excitement about the matter, but also the humiliation of hearing this from Rechter, not from his father himself. Luckily, the Quodpot game could be resumed before he had to think of a fitting reply.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After practise and a depressingly cold shower, Draco looked for his _Daily Prophet_ lying around the Inostranit common room, a place characterised by a persistent chill and an ever-present smell of mildew. As the delivery owl had to come all the way from London, he rarely got his paper before the afternoon. If he had practise or afternoon classes, often his classmates helped themselves to his copy, a practise Draco would have liked to stop but did not know how to do this without making any enemies in the narrow confinement of the Inostranit house. Finally, he found the paper lying in a disorderly heap next to an armchair in a dingy corner of the common room. He knew he still had some extensive Curses & Hexes homework to do, but for once put it off until he had found the front page, which, predictably, featured the news of Fudge's demise. Draco scanned the article and whistled through his teeth. Killed at Hogwarts, killed by a fugitive werewolf, under 'alleged influence of You-Know-Who'. Remus Lupin was done for, that much was certain. Draco could not say he felt sorry for his former teacher in any way. Instead, he grinned when his thoughts strayed off to Rechter's question. Lucius Malfoy as Britain's Minister of Magic, now that would be really something. His father would put things right in Britain, Malfoy was sure: All riff-raff and scum among wizards beware – here came the ancient, honourable and, of course, wealthy house of the Malfoys.

After eating '_oojin'_, Draco went to the daily evening meeting of the '_Contshina Edocs',_ a group that Mr. Petrodent had named, very much to the amusement of all Russian students and teachers. The smallish, insignificant-looking servant of the Dark Lord with the odd silvery hand did not seem to notice that there was a considerable amount of snickering behind his back. Whatever kind of meaning the name was supposed to but failed to convey, the group consisted of students who, for extra-curricular purposes, were preparing the annihilation of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry by means of the _Eliminatus_ curse. Most of them were Inostranits, but a few Uchenies and Pemeslos, a couple of proud Gospods and even a single Hudojnic could be found among the group's regular members.

While the meetings of the young Death Eater aspirants occasionally featured discussions of how the group could best serve the Dark Lord, or the planning of events such as the visit to Boston Magical High School, their main point was to practice channelling magical energy for the _Eliminatus_ curse. Ludmila Davies, Head of the Inostranit house, supervised them in their activities on a nightly basis and made sure no severe magical accident happened. The middle-aged Anglo-Russian teacher for Combat Magic was a loyal servant of the Dark Lord, Draco had heard, and obviously could be trusted with his youngest followers. Mr. Petrodent showed up roughly every other week, giving further instructions and taking notes in an ominous black book. Draco was sure the servant of the Dark Lord was reporting the students' behaviour and achievements back to his master, pre-sorting them into suitable and less suitable aspiring Death Eaters. On the other hand, he pondered, maybe Petrodent only brought a notebook to motivate the students; when he was around, everyone tried to outdo the others. Draco himself was no exception; as soon as he spotted the smallish wizard, even the matter of the assassination lost some of its importance in relation to the acute necessity of making a good impression. 

After Channelling practice, Petrodent called Draco back into the room. Rechter turned his head and shot him a look of envy, but as he was not called as well, he strode off after the other 'Conts'. Petrodent told Draco his help might be required in a matter of minor importance. Promptly Draco replied he'd be happy to be of assistance, at the same time feeling slightly disgusted of his and everybody else's reverence towards the inadequate and ugly servant of the Dark Lord. Politics, he told himself as he half-bowed – that was all his behaviour was about. 

"Actually, I'd like to ask you a few things about Hogwarts," Petrodent replied. "I understand you have been here for more than a school year, so your information would not be quite up to date, but it might be better than –" he emitted a false little laugh, "than mine, for instance." Petrodent must have caught Draco's surprised look, so he added: "I was a student there, myself , but that was a long time ago. Later, I spent some time at the school again, but my perspective might have been a bit – let's say, limited."

"Of course, Mr. Petrodent. What kind of information would you be interested in?" Draco asked, racking his brain for any kind of information whatsoever concerning the castle's defence mechanisms. However, that did not seem to be what Petrodent was after.

"First of all, I'd like to have a description of all your teachers – what they are like, how they teach, who is friends with whom – every little bit of information you can remember." Petrodent's blue, watery eyes fixed on Draco; his lachrymal sacs seemed to quiver with anticipation. Draco tried hard not to frown. Petrodent surely had to know who taught at Hogwarts – he had talked at length about the defensive qualities of Dumbledore, Snape and the old bag, McGonagall. 

Again, Petrodent must have sensed his confusion, because he added: "Some of the teachers have been at Hogwarts for ages, so I know them, but some have not. For example, your Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers have changed four times. Lupin, for instance – I wouldn't mind hearing a few things about him. Just tell me everything you can think of and don't worry about boring me with some of it – I'm used to that. It's just that I'd like to hear some stories, some anecdotes, you know – about teachers, and also about students. I'm particularly interested in your third year, by the way, and maybe your fourth, too."

Draco did his best. All in all, he spent about four hours with the Death Eater, relating many stories in great detail. Petrodent listened and took notes. A few times, he asked for further information. Draco told him all he knew, hoping to win status with the wizard and his master. While he recounted incidents, described places and people, Hogwarts castle rose before his eyes; he could almost see the Slytherin common room, smell the grass on the Quidditch pitch, hear the voices of some Slytherin acquaintances that had not been transferred to Durmstrang. With a strange pang of nostalgia, he remembered the Giant Squid and the large Halloween banquets. The more he talked, the more he enjoyed dwelling on his memories; he realised that he'd had quite a good time at his old school. 

It was well after two o'clock at night when Petrodent finally called a halt to the session by thanking Draco and closing his little notebook with a slam. Draco awoke as from a dream; he rubbed his eyes and oozed back into the present – a large, empty schoolroom with cracked and scorched walls, smelling slightly of sweat, soot and burned cabbage. 

"Thank you, Mr Malfoy – you have been a big help," Petrodent said as he rose from his chair. "My master will be pleased to hear this. Now I think I will call some house-elves to guide you to your dormitory, as it is well past your bed-time."

Draco thanked him for his kindness, feeling extremely weary. Suddenly, in the middle of a sleep-deprived haze, it seemed extremely strange to him that he should try to destroy his old school. He felt an urge to ask Petrodent to what use his information would be put, but bit back his curiosity: Proper Death Eaters did not ask questions. 

  After the house-elves had lit him the way to his bed (not a four-poster like in the castle but a plain cast-iron affair with squeaky bed-springs aligned with a dozen look-alikes), Draco quickly undressed and slid under the icy covers. _Hardship builds character_, he whispered inaudibly to himself, mocking one of the school's many unpleasant mottos. Then he relaxed, hoping to be immersed in sleep immediately. However, just as he could feel his consciousness slip away, a thought went through his brain like a jolt of Muggle eckeltricity. Immediately he was awake again. Damning the thought inwardly, he felt on his bedside table for a quill and a piece of scrap parchment. All he wanted was to sleep, because in a few hours he would have to rise again for a very exhausting day; however, making a note would take the thing off his mind and hopefully permit him to fall asleep. In the darkness, he scribbled one word – probably illegible, but certainly the scribble would remind him of his plan to e-mail Chad at Boston Magical High as soon as his tight timetable would give him a chance. There was something uncanny about the questions Petrodent had asked, something which had just occurred to Draco. Suddenly he had a very, very odd thought – and he knew just the person who might confirm or disconfirm his idea.


	16. Ginny

16 – Ginny 

When the school was suddenly buzzing with Aurors and even a few Investiwitches, the curiosity of all students was awakened. Rumours bloomed, but none of them as outrageous as the truth, which was announced by Professor McGonagall at a students' assembly the morning after the Minister's death. Like most students, Ginny found it hard to believe. Professor Lupin? Kill? The Minister of Magic? Sure, Lupin was a werewolf; sure, he had been hit by one of the mysteriously dangerous Ice Missiles. Ginny had seen two of her own brothers each suffer a very disturbing effect from such an injury. However, in spite of Ron's failed attempt to curse Harry to death, Ginny had never for a second considered that one of the injured students or wizards might actually kill somebody.

Security measures were becoming unbearable. In her own year and house, two people, Rhonda and Colin, had been temporarily de-wanded. All 'unwounded' students and teachers had been advised to carry their wands in identilocked wand-purses which none but their owners could open, just so that 'the afflicted', as had become the commonly used euphemism, could not get at them. People avoided them; Candice Fudge, unmellowed by her grief, scorned them openly and told all who would listen that they belonged "shut away at St Mungo's." Ginny made a point always to walk to her classes with Rhonda, and to be kind to Colin, but she never forgot to identilock her wand away. 

In classes, 'the afflicted' were forced to watch while other students did magic. Flitwick, de-wanded himself, had his classes write essays rather than practice charms. Ginny had never been particularly fond of the tiny teacher, but now that she saw him look the wandless fool in front of his students, she felt sorry for him. 

Of course, her special concern remained her brothers. Both Ron and Fred seemed to withdraw further and further into their shells of indifference. Both were kept at the hospital wing now; George complained that they had not even protested when their wands were confiscated. Ginny came to visit every day, as did George, Molly and Angelina, who were staying in the twins' house at Hogsmeade. 

Progress on the panacea was apparently slow; however, Rhonda reported that Snape had brewed up a potion which the 'afflicted' had been commanded to drink. She was far from happy about it; Snape, she told Ginny, had assembled all of them in his office where they had been required to swallow a vile and evil-smelling hot brew. He had told them that it would temporarily weaken their magical abilities, making it impossible for them to harm someone with a Death Curse. They would have to drink the potion every week, something he would personally supervise; he also remarked offhandedly that it would noticeably impede their flying skills. All Quidditch players were outraged; Cho Chang, Rhonda had reported, had broken out in tears, an event which Snape had ignored entirely. Of course, all Gryffindors were worried about their team, with their Keeper declared unable to play and one chaser impeded by the potion. As both other chasers as well as both Beaters were new on the team, the only fit person appeared to be team captain Harry, Rhonda complained. Ginny nodded absentmindedly. She had other worries than the Gryffindor Quidditch team, or rather, her worries concentrated on some of the players (and ex-players), not the expected score of the team.

During lunch hour, when she had gone to see her brothers, she had spotted George and Angelina in a dark hallway around the corner from the hospital wing. They had been talking about Snape's potion. Curious and feeling she was chronically under-informed about all things concerning her sick brothers, Ginny had stopped in her tracks and hidden behind a forlorn-looking suit of armour to eavesdrop. George had complained that Snape had used an extract gained from the twins' Potion Spoiler for his magic-weakening potion, accepting everybody's praise without giving the twins credit in any way. Angelina had chided George for being so negative; everything that might help the 'afflicted' should be welcomed, not criticised, she said. 

"You are right, and you are morally superior, as always," George had instantly agreed with her and then – Ginny had seen it clearly as she peaked around the suit's armour chest – he had kissed her. Angelina had melted into his arms, obviously welcoming his caresses. On tiptoes, Ginny had turned around to flee as quickly and silently as she could. She had raced towards the band room, let herself in with her key, and had spent the rest of the lunch hour drumming away at her set. She did not want any food, she did not want to see anybody, and least of all she wanted to visit any of her brothers, be they sick or well. The wrongness of what she had seen seemed to cling to her skin, to her lips, to the inside of her mouth. Only because she loved her instrument so much she refrained from spitting on it to get the acid taste off her tongue. Angelina was Fred's girlfriend, or sort of, and had been since the Yule Ball of 1994. 

Reminding herself she must not overextend her lunch hour but be in time for Potions class, Ginny interrupted her playing to glance at her wristwatch. She had to wipe her sleeve across her eyes because her vision was a bit blurred. The watch told her she had a few minutes left. They would be used for practicing paradiddles, she decided, when suddenly a voice said: 

"Hey, you have gotten a few things done in the last few months. Does you good to have your own set for practice I suppose – or maybe your new band is what made all the difference."

Ginny looked up, then rose from her stool so fast that it toppled backwards. Without thinking, she ran up to the woman, called out her name and hugged her. Aisha laughed and slapped a hand on Ginny's left shoulder. "How have you been doing?" she asked, sounding at the same time jovial and compassionate. "It's good to see you."

Slightly embarrassed, Ginny took a half-step back and wiped her eyes again. "So-so," she murmured and smiled bravely. "What are you doing here? I mean...." She felt her throat constrict. That wasn't the way she had wanted that question to sound. Far from being miffed, however, Aisha laughed.

"You mean, what's an ole' Muggle chick like me doin' in the castle of Oz again?" she drawled.

Ginny almost laughed, too. Relieving her of the need to answer, Aisha replied to Ginny's question:

"The others came too. There's some kind of wizard trouble of which I know very little, of course. Roary said his presence was required here because someone called Brownie or so was killed, and he didn't want to leave Pat and me behind in New York for fear that we might be Muggle-napped. He said we'd be staying here for a while, actually."

"That's good news," Ginny replied. "That you are staying, not that our Minister of Magic has been murdered."

"Oh, that's what that Brownie guy was?" Aisha said, politely displaying interest. "Right, Roary said he had to come here to make sure that he was replaced by the right person, but I don't quite remember the details."

Ginny nodded, but did not dwell on the subject. "As long as you're here, you can teach me some more things," she said.

"Absolutely, I was planning on that," Aisha agreed. "Varlerta seems to have made a couple of plans for Pat and me, too. Like, we're supposed to assist someone teaching _Muggle studies_." She pronounced the last two words as if they were the strangest expression she had ever heard. "You know, I never really finished my B.A. on American literature, but I suppose I could give it a try."

Ginny could not imagine Varlerta's Muggle band mates telling classes of young witches and wizards about the strange habits of the common Muggle, but she did not object. Somehow the Muggle drummer had made a lasting impression on her; to have her around was some kind of consolation in all her confusion and worries.

"Can we go somewhere and have a cup of tea together?" asked Aisha.

Ginny glanced at her watch and let out a tiny shriek. "Goodness, I'm supposed to be in Potions class. Professor Snape will kill me."

"Oh, him." Aisha grinned. "Well, if he's that scary, run along – I'll catch up with you later."

After the quickest "see you," Ginny did run. She speeded along the hallways, stumbled down the stairs, only to find the direct way down to the dungeon blocked by the Wandering Scaffold, a moody little nuisance that occasionally popped out of the nothing to further delay students who were already late. Cursing under her breath, Ginny doubled back and dashed down another corridor which would hopefully take her to the other stair that led down into the dungeon. Rushing around the corner, she was suddenly caught around the middle by an arm. She found herself face to face with the most handsome arrangement of azure eyes, blonde dreadlocks and seven freckles – Joolz Hengert.

"Gin," he said, grinning. "What's the hurry – someone chasing you?"

Torn between her wish to make it to Potions class and another feeling altogether, Ginny replied hastily: "Hi Joolz. I think we are both late for class."

Joolz consulted his watch and nodded very earnestly. "So we are, Gin. We are bad people – almost social outcasts," he said solemnly. Ginny could see the humour in his eyes. It did not seem to worry him that he was late for class.

"I've got Snape now," she replied with the squeaky voice she hated so much. 

Joolz laughed, but not in a derogatory way. "Well, you better hurry then before he's got a reason to hurt you," he said and let go of Ginny. Between regret and relief, she waved him a quick goodbye and sprinted on.

By the time she reached the Potions classroom, her tardiness amounted to ten minutes and her emotional state was, well, confused. George and Angelina, Aisha, Rhonda, the sudden demise of Mr 'Brownie', paradiddles, Fred and Ron, Muggle Studies and an assortment of seven Freckles seemed to orbit her head with amazing speed. Without even thinking of an excuse, she opened the door to the classroom and stepped inside.

"Miss Weasley. How condescending of you to honour us with your presence at last," Snape purred dangerously from behind his desk. His eyes had not narrowed at her that way for a long time.

Ginny raised her hands in a gesture of defence, or maybe of showing she was unarmed. "Look, I'm sorry I'm late," she said, carefully sliding towards her seat next to where Rhonda was slicing Billywig stings, waiting for Ginny to do the 'real' magic.

"Oh, you are sorry," Snape almost whispered. "Then undoubtedly you have a first-class excuse for me."

Practicing her drums, meeting Aisha and being hugged around the waist by Joolz Hengert probably did not classify as an excuse, Ginny pondered. Suddenly she felt incredibly weary. "Look, I have none," she replied. "Could you please just punish me and get on with your class?"

Snape stared at her for a moment, then nodded. "Very well, Miss Weasley, I most certainly will. Report to me after class. Now – Essence of Billywig –"

Ginny did her best to pay attention. Working on a cauldron together with Rhonda made things easier: While Ginny had to do everything magical, Rhonda was supervising the process, making sure that Ginny did not overlook any crucial details in the brewing of the essence which was supposed to be one of the chief ingredients of the ink-black Hawk Potion. At the end of the lesson, what simmered in their cauldron looked acceptable. After getting the teacher's appraisal, the two girls poured the liquid into a storage jug and placed it on a shelf in the room adjoining the Potions classroom. Ginny helped Rhonda clean her slicing equipment and tidy up the workplace. "Go along, I'll catch up with you in a minute," she whispered to her friend when they were done. Rhonda pretended to shake with fear in Ginny's stead, but walked off as instructed. 

Snape was clearing off equipment; he did not take notice of her until she carefully pronounced his name. 

"Miss Weasley!" he spat after abruptly turning around to her. He was positively annoyed, Ginny could see. "What in Merlin's name do you want now?"

Ginny felt her heart sink. She could have just walked off, she realised; out of character as it might be, Snape had obviously forgotten that she was still awaiting his punishment. Maybe the murder, the danger coming from the 'afflicted', or the presence of investiwitches did not only confuse her, but even the feared Potions Master. However, it was too late to take the chance and leave now. "You were going to punish me," she replied softly.

Snape sneered. "Oh yes, that's correct." His eyes assumed a mean glance. Inwardly, Ginny gave up her next couple of band practices for detention duty – pickling bat testicles was a task Snape might set for her. However, he seemed to have something else in mind. With something like sadistic humour in his voice, he announced: "If you are so bent on being punished, here's my punishment. May your band be officially deemed uncool from this day on. I condemn you to a keyboard player. Her name is Kay Weiss, she is a third-year Slytherin, and entirely annoying. She will attend your band practice starting today. I will tell her you eagerly await her. May your rock dreams be drowned in mainstream pop music." He turned back to his work, indicating clearly that he had declared his sentence on her crime.

Ginny could not believe her own ears. Snape was the antithesis to any kind of popular culture; how could he possibly know or even care about what was cool and what was uncool? How could he be aware that a rock band might consider a keyboard player unsuitable for their style of music? What did he know about mainstream pop, or how to avoid it? She also felt tempted to argue. It was in Snape's power to deduct points from her house, to set detention for her – but not to command her to accept another band member. What would the others say – Joolz, for example? However, the teacher had clearly dismissed her, and if she stayed to argue, or ask about his musical preferences, she would be late for yet another class, if not hung and quartered by the Potions Master. Her band members would figure out a way to deal with the problem, she decided. "Yes, Professor," she replied.

Snape looked back on her, an unemotional, almost disinterested glance. "You may go now," he said flatly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As apprehensive as Ginny was about her punishment, especially about what the rest of the band would say, she did not think it would do any good not to mention it to them. After classes, she had about half an hour to have a cup of tea with Aisha and devour a couple of rolls. Then she made sure she was at the band room early. However, she was not early enough. Outside the door, she found Kay Weiss waiting for her. The younger girl awkwardly rose from her cross-legged position, smoothed down her robes with her hands and said somewhat breathlessly: "Hi Ginny, I am Kay, the keyboard player. Professor Snape sent me here because he said you wanted me in your band." 

"Yeah, sure," Ginny replied vaguely, trying to sound neither too enthusiastic nor too impolite. She noticed the flat, long keyboard case leant to the wall, a sure token that Kay meant business. She knew she should utter a proper reply or start some conversation, but was at a loss for a topic. If only she could persuade Kay very gently that she did not want to play with Ginny's band after all, then Snape might not punish her for boycotting his punishment. She suppressed a sigh. Detention would have been so much easier. Then she opened the door to the band room and said to Kay: "You might as well come in."

Half-dragging, half-carrying her keyboard case, Kay followed her inside. Ginny noticed that the silver-blond girl looked around with awe: With its drum set, amplifiers and small P.A., with its moving and immobile posters of magical and Muggle bands, with its worn-out sofa and empty Butterbeer bottles, the room surely looked like a proper band room, like a hang-out of cool and interesting musicians. Pretending she hadn't noticed Kay's admiring glances, Ginny threw her stick-bag on the worn-out piece of carpet that lay beneath the drum set. Then she let herself sink onto the sofa. "So, Kay – what kind of music have you played so far?" she asked the girl who was still standing in the middle of the room as if she did not dare to touch anything.

After a short but perceptible pause, Kay replied very softly: "I've had classical piano lessons as a kid, and then I've had this play-along book for pop music, and then..." Her voice trailed off, leaving Ginny to conclude that Kay had already exhausted the scope of her musical experience.

"Are you Muggle-born, then?" she asked, thinking that few wizard children would have access to the kind of play-along books to which Kay was referring. 

The girl vigorously shook her head. "I'm in Slytherin, after all," she said. Much more softly, she added: "My mother's – a friend of my mother is a Muggle music teacher. She used to teach me piano, and she gave me this keyboard, and my mother bewitched it so it can play by magic, not by electricity."

While she was talking, Joolz and Rhonda entered the room; Neville came right behind them. They all stopped in their tracks, taking in Kay and, Ginny supposed, the betraying long shape of the keyboard case. Ginny felt their glances stray from Kay to herself. _Morgana's arse_, what was she going to say to them?

Kay spared her the decision by introducing myself. "Hi, I'm Kay Weiss. Professor Snape said you would like a keyboard player in your band, so – here I am." Her voice was boosted by false self-confidence. Ginny wished the girl to be far away, but she also felt she would not have liked to be in her shoes. It was unthinkable to tell the others in front of Kay that she was sent here as a _punishment_ for Ginny.

"Keyboard – that would be nice. I'm Neville, by the way." Trust her fellow apprentice to be kind and forthcoming, as well as stylistically indiscriminate. The band might fall into the horrors of synthie pop, and he might not even notice. Joolz looked sceptical; Rhonda expressed her indecision by observing closely how Joolz might react, ready to mirror him if necessary. When Joolz shrugged and said: "I suppose we can give it a try," Rhonda shrugged with him and started to unpack her bass guitar. Only Neville glanced over to Ginny and raised an eyebrow, a skill Ginny was surprised to see he had. He seemed to be the only one in the room who found it odd that Professor Snape would send the band a musician, who sensed that there was something Ginny was not telling them.

The band set up their instruments; Ginny connected Kay's keyboard with the small P.A. and moved up a table as an improvised keyboard stand. Kay watched her, shyness in her eyes. Then she asked Ginny in a small voice: "Can I have a look at the sheet music before we start?"

Hm, that might actually be the perfect way to get rid of her. "Oh, we have no sheet music. We play by ear," Ginny replied airily and walked off to her drum set, leaving Kay lonely and without any notated instructions in the corner behind her keyboard.

"But – how do I know what to play without sheet music?" Kay asked anxiously.

Neville, of course, gave her an encouraging answer. "Oh, don't worry – it may take a while, but you will learn. Just listen to us at first, and listen to some of the songs we cover, and then we'll figure something out in time." He did not seem to question her right to be there at all. Joolz, however, cast the Slytherin girl sidelong glances. Ginny felt a certain tension built up in the room, until Neville said:

"Oh, by the way, we have a gig in six weeks."

"In six weeks?" Ginny thought she had not heard him right. "Where? How?"

"Oh, Varlerta's throwing a Christmas party and practically _told me_ we'd be playing," Neville replied, fiddling with his microphone.

"We only have four songs," Rhonda objected quietly.

"And we'd need a band name," Joolz added. "We can't possibly play a gig without a band name."

So many problems at the same time – Ginny knew hardly where to start. "What kind of band name?" she asked.

"Oh, I dunno," Joolz mused. "Something cool. Something evil, I suppose."

"Something glamorous," Rhonda said in a dreamy voice.

"The magic..." Neville seemed to ponder, but could not find a word to finish his phrase.

"The blast-ended Skrewts!" Joolz almost shouted and threw his arms up in a grand pose. 

"Oh, no, not the nasty Skrewts," Rhonda objected. "I really hated them. They were not cool, and certainly not glamorous. I think our name should suggest that we are really famous and that everybody knows us."

"Like – 'You-Know-Who'?" Ginny suggested without thinking.

The room suddenly turned quiet. All eyes turned to Ginny. She felt herself blush and hasted to say: "Hey, that was a joke, and probably in bad taste. I didn't really mean it as a band name."

In the background, they heard Kay giggle. "That's really, really evil, Ginny," she said. Ginny wished she could quiet her.

"You can't possibly name a band after You-Know-Who," chided Rhonda, sounding very reasonable and teacher-like. "That would sound like we're – supporting him. And with your brothers in hospital, and me de-wanded and everything –" she stopped short, leaving it for the others to complete the sentence in their heads.

"Look, it was a joke," Ginny replied, wishing she had for once thought before she spoke. "I don't need any such drastic reasons for not supporting You-Know-Who. I think we all agree that we oppose him, don't we?"

"His name is Voldemort," murmured Neville under his breath. The microphone picked up the sound and sent it via amplifier and speakers to everybody's ears. Joolz, Rhonda and Kay moaned.

"Sorry," Neville said, this time taking care not to speak into the microphone. "But Dumbledore says not using his name makes things worse. If everybody is afraid to break the taboo, how afraid will we be to fight him? If we say You-Know-Who, we – we collectively agree that he's the only thing that everybody knows about without naming it, so we are giving him a lot of importance, maybe more than he deserves. I'm not saying we should use the name, but a bit of confusion might do matters some good."

Into the silence than ensued, Joolz whispered, perfectly audibly for everyone: "Whoopee, Longbottom's getting bookish." 

Neville blushed. "Look, could we start playing some music?" he asked. "After all, we've got a gig coming up."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Varlerta had indicated that she would need her two apprentices for an experiment the next day, but had not told them any details. When Ginny and Neville turned up for their normal practice time at Varlerta's 'music lab', they were surprised to find two more people there – Ambrose Curtis and Perenelle Flamel.

Varlerta introduced Neville to the ancient, tiny witch – everybody else in the room knew each other already – and announced that they would conduct an experiment using music. "It is quite a tricky little affair," she told her apprentices, "so tricky, in fact, that I cannot exactly tell you what this is all about. You will just have to trust me and to follow my instructions. The three of us –" she indicated Perenelle Flamel and Ambrose Curtis with her hand – "will make sure nothing can go wrong."

Ginny didn't like to take part in a magical experiment without knowing what she was doing, but she didn't object. For one thing, if Perenelle was present, it wasn't unlikely that the experiment was needed to help Ron and Fred; for another, Varlerta wasn't in the best of moods these days. It wouldn't have been adequate to say the teacher had developed a tendency to blow up at others. She would rather snap or make a quick and sometimes stinging remark here and there for which Varlerta usually apologised afterwards. However, since the murder of the Minister of Magic, or maybe rather since Sirius' disappearance, Ginny felt even less inclination than before to cross her teacher. Of course, she wasn't supposed to know that Sirius was gone, because it took no 'Hermione' to conclude that he and the fugitive Lupin had disappeared together. However, seeing that Varlerta was upset, that Harry was upset, and that Sirius wasn't there to comfort either, she'd just asked whether Varlerta had heard from him. Maybe not thinking about that Ginny wasn't supposed to know about any of this, maybe simply trusting Ginny, the teacher had responded glumly: "Not one word, and it's been six days." Ginny could understand why the teacher was worried; she'd be, too. All things considered, she did not want to raise any trouble about the experiment, because usually, or at least most of the time, her teacher knew what she was doing. 

Varlerta gave Neville three lines of music notes; as Ginny still had trouble with rhythm notation, the teacher played a strange seven-four-time rhythm on the smaller of the Shaman drums for Ginny to imitate on its larger 'sister'. She let them practice their parts for a while, keeping time on the smaller drum to keep Neville's tune and Ginny's rhythm together. When the parts of the music fell into place, Varlerta took her electric guitar from its stand and added a strange guitar riff, first tentatively, then powerfully. Ginny closed her eyes. The uneven rhythm, strange and odd to her at first, had become a flow that seemed to go on and on into eternity. She started feeling the music as waves in which Neville's tune and Varlerta's ostinato became little currents of their own. Gently and then mightily, the power welled up between the three of them. It seemed to come from the very ground beneath their feet and to flow right through them. In a way, it was like the power coming from the stone circles the three music magicians still walked each full moon, but somehow the flow felt more – immediate, Ginny thought with the small fraction of her mind that was not enveloped in the trance of the music.

Hearing Varlerta slow down and fade out her ostinato, Ginny let her own rhythm ebb away. She felt as if she was falling asleep; just when her head started to sink against the back of her chair, someone rapped her on the shoulder. Ginny blinked, then opened her eyes. "This was quite remarkable, Varlerta," said Perenelle Flamel, her bony fingers drumming against Ginny's neck. "Your two kids are a little power source of their own, or rather, they are learning to master channels which go beyond the reach of even many adult witches and wizards. I agree with you that we should give your method a try."

Ginny watched Varlerta put her electric guitar on its stand. She noticed that the teacher looked shaky and pale. Come to think about it, she did not feel exactly hot herself; next to her, Neville was hugging himself, holding the silvery flute close to his body as if he wanted to give it some warmth. Something about the experiment had been exhausting, though she could not quite say what.

"How are your measurements, Ambrose?" Varlerta asked, smiling wearily at the dark-skinned wizard. 

Curtis glanced on a small brass instrument. From afar it looked like compass of octagon shape. "Rather promising, actually," he replied. "Your two students are a force to be reckoned with. Of course, to know anything at all, we will have to repeat the experiment in the presence of the patients." So this _was_ about Fred and Ron, Ginny concluded.

"Not now," Varlerta said, a slight tremble in her voice. "I am not used to dealing with, er – this particular force; neither are my apprentices. I suggest we wait until tomorrow to make sure we are all fit for what we are doing." Ginny was surprised. Varlerta wasn't normally known for being over-careful. Clearly Curtis had the same kind of objection:

"Var, we should make sure the missile victims should get our help as soon as they can. You know quite well," he cast a sidelong glance at Perenelle, "that time is running out."

"Oh, shhh, boy," the ancient witch chided. "One more day won't hurt us. This lady knows what she's talking about, and she's responsible for her apprentices, after all. Before something goes wrong which we might regret, let's continue this tomorrow." 

Ginny wasn't sure what her own opinion was in the matter concerned. She did feel tired, but she wanted to help her brothers yesterday rather than tomorrow. Also, although she did not appreciate being talked about as if she wasn't there, she could see that both Curtis and the two witches had a point. She exchanged glances with Neville, who shrugged. Suddenly Ginny was extremely grateful that she was not the only apprentice being talked about, that Neville and she were in the same situation. If they were really channelling things beyond their comprehension, at least she was not the only one who had to employ her powers on demand without knowing what was going on. Communicating with Neville made her feel less like a tool that was being used, and more like a person.

Varlerta rose and turned her amplifier off. "Go and do something fun, kids," she said to them. "I know this is an awkward situation, but we really need you, and we can't give you more information than we absolutely must. Meet us at the hospital wing tomorrow at the same time."

Curtis frowned, but did not object. Ginny rose and zipped her drum into its canvas bag – outside Varlerta's building, it was probably still half raining, half snowing, and the water was threatening to damage the drum. Neville disassembled his flute and cleaned out the parts with a piece of cloth stuck through a stick with a slit. Perenelle and Curtis watched them curiously. Ginny felt a bit uncomfortable. _So_ she had been doing something great this afternoon. Big deal. She would have preferred to know what exactly she had done, what exactly Curtis had measured. The advice to 'do something fun' tonight counted for very little, either: She still had a workload of homework before her; OWLs would come up next summer, as none of the teachers ever tired of reminding the Fifth Years.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next afternoon, Ginny was not surprised to find Varlerta, Ambrose Curtis and Perenelle Flamel in the hospital wing, along with her sick brothers and Gwenwyfar Ailis Potioned to sleep. It would not have been unusual for the matron to be there, too, but Madam Pomfrey appeared to be absent. Her mother was not an uncommon sight at the sickbed of Fred and Ron either; however, when she spotted her, Ginny expected Molly to leave before the experiment. This, however, did not seem the case; exchanging greeting nods with Varlerta, Curtis and Perenelle, Molly settled into an armchair, looking pale but determined. Curtis rose an eyebrow at Perenelle Flamel.

"I know this is unusual," she answered, "but we can't really deny her to be here. Three of her children are involved, after all. Maybe she will have a calming effect on us." She looked at Molly and held her gaze for a moment. Molly nodded briefly; it was as if the two witches had silently agreed on a contract. Meanwhile, Varlerta instructed her two apprentices.

"I know you have Coaxed Ron into waking," she told them. "You made contact with his consciousness and fetched him back into the present. This was a great achievement. However, what I am asking of you today is something different. I want you to concentrate on the task we practiced yesterday, and to follow my musical directions. Do not try to contact or Coax anyone, just let the magic flow." She repeated yesterday's directions, made sure that Ginny remembered the rhythm correctly and that Neville still knew how to play the tunes she had given to him. Ginny noticed that the teacher was nervous. It wasn't like her to be extra-careful; normally Varlerta wasn't exactly reckless, but usually she trusted her apprentices to follow instructions without her having to repeat them. The experiment was likely to be dangerous. Curtis and Perenelle appeared to have their wands ready, although Curtis was also fiddling with his small brass device.

Ginny closed her eyes and played her rhythm upon a nod of the teacher. More quickly than on the day before, Neville's tunes and Varlerta's ostinato trickled in and flowed along as one. There was no temptation to contact or even Coax the patients with the music, as it soon seemed to escape Ginny's grip, to develop a will of its own, to spill into its own direction. Ginny felt her head swim; all of her senses seemed to blur. She abandoned all attempts of holding on to the safe shore of consciousness and let the music carry her away like an almighty torrent. Briefly she had the vision of a broad and deep stream, sweeping away a weir and gushing towards deadly rapids. Her rhythm seemed to have lost its shape as if it had melted away; her finger tips were becoming dangerously hot: The stream had turned from water to lava. Ginny felt afraid, but could not stop playing; the music was flowing through her as if the weir that had been broken had been the one of her own mind.

"Block the flow! For Keranta's sake, block the flow!" Hands roughly tore at Ginny's wrists, disconnecting fingers and drum. As soon as she lost contact to the instrument, Ginny felt the pain in her fingers: Both of her hands were covered with blisters and burns. She opened her eyes to see Molly tear the flute from Neville's lips. Meanwhile, Varlerta was putting aside her guitar. Ginny noticed that the teacher's fingers were smeared with blood. "Morgana's arse, that was a close one," Varlerta whispered, sounding unamused.

"This kind of magic is quite effective," Perenelle commented dryly. "No wonder it was banned in my days."

Curtis appeared to be shaking. The brass instrument appeared to have fallen to the floor. He bent to retrieve it, mumbling "good one, Molly," without looking at anyone.

Molly went over to Fred and Ron to check their pulses and stroke their red-haired heads. Ginny noticed that tears were running down her mother's face. "Good for you – they seem to be alright," Molly snapped at Curtis. Then she returned to Ginny and hugged her around the shoulders from behind. "You _are_ aware that you almost killed three of my children," she said accusingly to no one in particular.

Varlerta seemed to be to shaken to speak coherently; after wiping her bloodied hands on her black robes, she mumbled an apology. Just like Neville, the teacher looked about as sick as Ginny felt. After an awkward pause in which everybody seemed to avoid everybody else's eyes, Ambrose Curtis was the first to regain control of his speech:

"How did you know what was going on, Molly? You did not – you did not _feel the flow_, did you?" 

Perenelle nodded gravely. "That was quite amazing, and of course, very lucky," she added.

"Well, I certainly _did_ perceive it," Ginny's mother snapped at him. "And a good thing, too! Where were the Unspeakables among us to stop it? Did you not notice that things were getting out of hand?"

"It was – too much, too sudden," Curtis stammered. "Mrs. Weasley, I _am_ sorry – terribly sorry for endangering your children, in fact. I had no idea that our three musicians would succeed so fatally well. Once I realized the strength of the stream they were unleashing, I already found myself trapped in it." 

"Absolutely," Perenelle agreed. "I've never felt it build up so quickly in my life, and my life has been a long one. You must be very talented, Molly, as you were able to break it."

"We are all very lucky that you perceived the flow and stopped it, and I am infinitely grateful for that," Curtis continued. "However, I do wonder how you – I mean, did you ever receive any kind of training?"

"As an Unspeakable?" Molly replied. "A little, before I was married."

Varlerta had in the meantime gotten up and taken a small vial from a cupboard. She put some liquid from it on Neville's blistered lips, on Ginny's sore hands and finally onto her own fingers into which the guitar strings had cut deep ridges. Ginny felt the potion sting, but saw that it helped her skin heal very rapidly. Her head was starting to clear; fascinated, she followed the conversation between Curtis and her mother. To think Molly Weasley had received training for being an Unspeakable was – well, almost unthinkable.

"You mean you have the skill to perceive and control the –" Curtis glanced over to Ginny and Neville. It was clear that there were things he did not want to talk about in front of them. He turned back to Molly and continued: "You know what I mean – did you pass the test?"

"The first one? I suppose I did," Molly murmured, absentmindedly stroking Ginny's ultra short hair. Her anger seemed to have largely evaporated.

"But that means you should be an Unspeakable now," Curtis said, clearly amazed. "There are so little people who have that gift, and even fewer we can trust in these difficult times. If you have it, why aren't you working with us? – We need you," he added imploringly after the briefest pause.

"Need me? That's ridiculous," Molly murmured. "I never even finished my training."

"Then finish it now," Curtis said imploringly. "You saw what just happened. Not only did you perceive the flow, but you were able to stop it when Perenelle and I were already carried away with it. We need people like you."

"I can't imagine going back to it," Molly told him, her voice slightly shaky. "When I left school, I took the test and started the training, but then I found out I was pregnant. I got married immediately, of course. Bill came, then Charlie– well, you know how it is. After I found out I was expecting a third child, I never really considered finishing my training as an Unspeakable – and I don't think I could do it now. I am forty-seven and surely too old for this."

"You mean, Bill was an _accident_?" Ginny asked, once more genuinely shocked.

"He certainly was not," Molly replied, sounding quite offended. "Like all of you, he was a gift in any way I can think of. Only –" she hesitated, "he was a gift that interfered with some of my plans. So I made other plans. I concentrated on my children. I never regretted that. The more children I got, the more I wanted." With a little laugh she continued: "If I thought it wisely, I would surely have another one now. It's quite lonely in the house sometimes with your lot gone." She stepped behind Ginny's chair and placed both hands on Ginny's shoulders as if she was hiding behind her daughter.

"Molly, we need you," Curtis implored again. "There's so many people at the – you know, so many we can't trust, and so few which are really on our side. I firmly believe we can trust you, though. If you could perceive and block the flow here and now, you should certainly be able to finish your training. Today, you probably saved three of your children's lives. It may very well happen that way again, especially as we might find a way to employ Varlerta's method in making the panacea after all. It seems risky, but also highly suitable. With your help, we can perhaps keep the danger at a minimum."

"You do seem to need my help if today is anything to go by," Molly snapped, audibly reminded of the experiment gone slightly wrong. Ginny felt like asking her mother to be easy on Curtis until she remembered that it was her life, along with Ron's, Fred's, Neville's and Varlerta's, which had been risked.

"No one can tell you what to do, Molly," Varlerta replied. "However, it _is_ a rare gift. Like most witches and wizards I do not possess it myself. Otherwise I might not even have agreed to this experiment, because I would have realised how dangerous things can become when you're dealing with the –" she gave Molly a meaningful look. Ginny was sure her mother understood, but found the adults' avoidance of relevant words unnerving. 

"Also, if your children are out of the house, it might be the best idea to find something else to do," Perenelle added in her brittle voice. "That's what I did in 1333 – I had the same talent as you did, and when my kids were grown and married, I was kind of bored, so I thought I might as well get a bit of work done before I died. Then I discovered a few things, and Nick discovered a few things, and we ended up combining our skills and knowledge until we made the Stone." She seemed to be lost in thoughts for a moment, but quickly recovered and continued: "Mind you, I'm not saying you can, will or should do something like that. I'm only saying it is highly satisfying to finally put your talents to use, those you have besides child-bearing and child-rearing. And if you can help your kids recover with your skills, what else could you possibly wish for?"

"But – I've been a housewife for so long." Molly grabbed Ginny's shoulder as if for reassurance. "I don't think I could – you know, go back to training, have a job, let alone deal with all that dangerous magic."

"You just showed that you are more fit to deal with danger than all the highly trained people in this room," Varlerta said dryly. Ginny was sure that the teacher was reproaching herself for putting her apprentices in danger. 

"I'm not sure," Molly said, her voice shaking. 

Without thinking, Ginny patted the hands on her shoulders with her own. "If you've got a rare talent, you've got to use it, mum," she said. 

Molly's fingers closed tightly around Ginny's. "You think so?" she whispered.

"Of course I do," Ginny said, half-turning to look Molly in the face. Suddenly she felt very proud of her mother. Molly smiled at her.

"If you say so, I will do that, my daughter, if only to make sure your very powerful magic doesn't blow us all up," she said, her eyes brimming with tears.


	17. Snape

17 – Snape 

_I am just a worthless liar.  
I am just an imbecile.  
I will only complicate you.  
Trust in me and fall as well.  
I will find a centre in you.  
I will chew it up and leave..._

_Trust me. Trust me. Trust me. Trust me. Trust me. _

Severus Snape pushed the stop button on the CD player, put the headphones down on his bedside table and blew out the candle. It was time to sleep, to wait for darkness to overcome his consciousness. He could only hope that the tidal waves in his stomach would calm down soon, that his mind would stop reeling. Maybe he should try cheap Muggle meditation music before going to sleep, not the kind of dark, soul-ploughing songs that seemed to speak to him, he mused. The _Tool CD was his current favourite; its grim depths seemed to mirror his emotions, but did little to calm him. _

Going to sleep had been a problem for him for as long as he could remember; like every remedy he had ever tried, music had turned into a part of the problem in the end. His body and mind still seemed to be resonating with the notes that had struck his soul. However, he realised as he lay there, waiting in vain for his spirit to calm down, music was part of the choice – the choice he had made himself, and even though he might well be forever at odds with it, he would never take it back, even if he could. He liked to think he could not forget his past, his sorrows and his own evil deeds, but that was not entirely true. If he was honest with himself, there had been occasions in his life when he could have chosen differently and become somebody else. For example, when Voldemort had fallen, Snape might have left Hogwarts, might have gotten himself a job far from students, from Dumbledore's hopes and fears, far from where the next fight would take place. True, at Hogwarts he had been safe from his fellow Death Eaters' revenge, but there had been a comparably peaceful period of time when he hadn't had that much to worry about. He might have secured himself a steady income, might have cut short his greasy hair, might have put an ad into the _Daily Prophet looking for an equally homely and not overly bright wife. He might have fathered obnoxious little children, might have joined the right clubs and acquired social acceptance with his fellow wizards, might have pretended the darkest days of his life had never happened. True, life had not exactly laid out that path for him, but neither had it been completely blocked – the path that might have led him at least to partial forgetfulness. However, he had chosen to stay, to hang on to his dark memories, believing them to be a part of himself which he should not deny. He had chosen to remain Hogwarts' derided Potions master, and therefore remained himself; loneliness was only a part of it. _

Beneath all his bitterness, not only did he have to admit that the major forces governing his life had been his own choices, but that on the whole, he accepted them still; however, of course that did not mean he had no regrets. Besides the central one, that of torturing and maiming people as a Death Eater, were the little things he would change if asked to re-write his biography – like holding and comforting the crying teenage girl in his arms until she told him what had made her so unusually upset on that autumn afternoon long ago. 

Sometimes he wondered whether, given that he had showed her he really cared, Valerie might have confided in him. She might have told him that her only protectoress had passed away, and that she feared she would be withdrawn from the school very soon. The two of them could have gone to Dumbledore for help. If the Headmaster had known in advance that Valerie's relatives, surely no strangers to him, were planning to remove her to Durmstrang, and that she did not want to leave, he might have consented to protect her, to keep her at Hogwarts. She would have stayed with him. Their walks in the Forbidden Forest, their tutoring sessions, their nightly excursions and duels would have continued. After a while he would have realised he did not need his Slytherin gang; he might never have become a Death Eater if Valerie had stayed. Instead of thinking about joining the Dark Lord, he would have spent his Sunday afternoons in a sunny clearing, listening to her lute playing. He remembered the funny little magical games they used to invent just for the two of them – nothing as boring as gobstones or wizard's chess for Verus and Valerie. Rather, they used to conjure up some basic illusions and make them run a race; they had messed about with dimension shifts, not-so-harmless potions and – he smiled in the darkness when he remembered her passion for it – had caused a lot of noisy explosions. He imagined them as they would have been during his remaining school years, sitting side by side on their old tree trunk, sharing a book, a laugh – a kiss? He knew there had been something between them that might have been more than friendship. True, Valerie had not been exactly pretty at thirteen, but he trusted himself enough to perceive her soul, rather than her body. Maybe the same could be said of her? They would have become a couple if she had stayed, there was no doubt about it. Or was he making things up now? On these nights, staring into the pitch darkness of his underground chamber, it was hard to tell fantasy from memory. 

He knew it was silly, nay, regressive, to idolise a past he had never had, but these days it was about the only way to find sleep in the darkness of his cell. He felt his consciousness drift off; he relaxed as he sensed that it seemed to head towards a clearing where the grown wizard could find solace only in his dreams, rather than towards nightmares and terror. Just when all thoughts started to fade, when his mind itself blurred, he heard a noise and felt the light of a candle touch his lids. Reluctantly, he let the hems of sleep slip away from his grasp; he started to blink at the dim light. 

"Professor Snape," a female voice whispered – a voice he recognised. A shiver ran down his spine. He sat up in bed to greet the intruder:

"What are you doing here in my sleeping chamber and at this time of the night, Miss Chang?" he asked the person approaching him, taking in her black cloak and her delicate bare feet on the chilly stone-paved floor.

"Professor Snape," she repeated, then corrected herself in a soft voice that seemed to talk of a heartfelt longing: "Severus! I cannot sleep, I cannot eat, I can only think of you. It is as if I was bewitched, only that I know no magic could feel this strong. Never have I yearned for any man the way that I long for you. I need you – oh, I need you so much more than I can say. Please, don't send me away – let me be your lover!"

Snape was silent for a moment, willing his mind to wake up properly. The words touched something deep within him. Nobody had ever talked to him like that, no, not even remotely. At last, he replied as icily as he could:

"Miss Chang, I cannot believe that a student, what's more, a Ravenclaw in her last year, should approach a teacher in this outrageous and indecent fashion. I will take thirty points from Ravenclaw, and you shall be grateful to me if I do not make public for which offence. And now return to your dormitory immediately!"

"Severus!" she gasped. Then she knelt down in front of his cot. "No, please, Severus, do not send me away! I love you, and if you will not love me back, I will certainly die of a broken heart!" In the flicker of the candle, Snape could see tears in her eyes. The way her black hair fell over her face when she bent her head ever so briefly reminded him of another black-haired female. He felt his throat constrict. Only with an immense effort, he managed to say:

"Out! And that will be fifty points from Ravenclaw."

Something gleamed in her liquid black eyes. "Do not think you can scare me with that punishment you use to hold children in check, Severus," she replied, her voice a velvety version of rebellion. "I am no longer a child." And with these words, she opened her cloak with both hands, revealing bare skin. 

For a moment, or maybe more than one, all Snape could do was just stare at her naked body displayed for him so close that the smallest movement of his hands would have sufficed for touching it. Her smallish, round breasts, shaped by the wintry cold of his chamber and maybe by something else, shone golden in the light of the candle; so did her gently curved stomach, touched by black shadows in the concavity of her belly bottom and among the black hair which grew a hand span below it. A part of him, a very physical part, seemed to bang its fists against the gates of his control, as if screaming that seventeen years of celibacy should be enough. Strange images flashed before his eyes: The naked body of Dolores Lestrange stretched out on a black velvet divan – oh, it had been so long! –; Professor Varlerta unlacing her boots to duel with him; a zipper hexed to jam, revealing a female back barely covered with lacy Muggle undergarments. Usually Snape took care to ban such images from his mind, but now he felt overpowered. Cho must have sensed his thoughts somehow, because she bent closer to him, whispering: "Severus, will you not make love to me?" 

For a second, the world seemed to hold its breath, waiting for his answer. But there was only one possible reply to such a question. Snape cast his blanket aside and set his feet on the cold stone floor to rise, taking care that his nightshirt revealed no more than his ankles as he moved. After he had risen, he towered over the nude, kneeling girl; his most authoritative voice, his most evil stare, came easily as soon as he stood.

"Miss Chang, you must have gotten in the way of a bad hex. Perhaps the enemy is working something evil in you with his Ice Missile. You obviously are not in your right mind. Get up and cover your body. We will go and see the Head of your house immediately."

Cho whimpered softly as if he had hit her, but she drew her cloak back over her skin and scrambled to her feet. Snape could see the tears running down her face; her quivering lips seemed to mutely form his name. After stepping into a pair of protective shoes and casting a cloak over his nightshirt, Snape stepped to the door and held it open for her. Her head bent, Cho stepped through it, obeying the commands of the teacher for whom she mysteriously seemed to have developed strange carnal desires. 

Carnal desires... The moment she passed him, realisation hit him like a curse. There was a very simple explanation for her behaviour, a dreadful, a fatal cause. Snape felt his blood run cold; he was done for. The thought filled his head, his body, the whole dungeon; it seemed to rise up to the very turrets of the castle and to spread into the whole world of witches and wizards. Severus Snape had made a mistake; Severus Snape had committed a crime. In the end, it amounted to the same. He would pay for it. 

Although he was absolutely certain, he sought confirmation, hoping against hope that he was mistaken. "Why did you drink the black potion? Who gave it to you, and what did you hope to gain from drinking it?" he asked while they walked up the stairs to the ground floor.

Cho stopped dead in her tracks and stared at him with her black, tear-filled eyes. For a blissful moment, he thought she did not know what he was talking about. Then she replied with despair in her voice: "What do I care about the potion, what do I care about flying if you won't love me? What do I care about life any more? I wish I had never been born."

"So you did drink it – the black potion on my desk?"

Cho put her hands to her face and sobbed. "Is that why you hate me?" she gasped, her mouth and eyes half-hidden by her fingers. "Because I tried to cheat at Quidditch? You gave me that potion which made me a bad flyer. They said they would kick me off the team. I did not want to cheat with the Hawk Potion – all I wanted was to get back my skill which your other potion took away from me."

Pitch-black Hawk Potion, yes, of course –illegal for Quidditch players, but on the Potions syllabus of every Fifth Year student. Why Cho should think that he would keep a bottle of the substance on his desk he could not fathom; it had to be the despair ringing in her every word which had driven her to the utmost folly, drinking an unidentified potion just because it had the right colour. Suddenly he saw her not as a threatening temptation, not as his ruin, not even as one student among many: He saw a girl whose boyfriend had been murdered by Lord Voldemort, who was trying to keep her place in an obviously hostile team, who stood under the threat of the Ice Missile which had hit her, who had been de-wanded and magically obstructed. This action had not only endangered her performance at the upcoming NEWTs, but had also made her almost useless on the Quidditch pitch. He could suddenly understand why she might resort to such desperate action – an action she was visibly paying for, now that she stood before him, looking pathetic with her bare feet on cold marble, crying because Hogwarts' least liked teacher refused to sexually take advantage of her. 

Never mind that he would pay far more dearly for this than even she; for a moment he wished he could at least take her to someone kind and understanding. Had he only made things up with Valerie, he thought briefly – a female who, in contrary to most teachers, would look after the girl first and only later ask about punishment or morality. But then again, even Professor Varlerta might come to ask how and why Miss Chang had found love bottled up in a phial, had found black _Devotacarna on Snape's desk. Come to think of it, Valerie was the last person he wanted to know, he contemplated as he resumed his steps, Cho trailing behind him._

Flitwick's apartment was situated around the corner from Ravenclaw Hall. Snape had expected Cho to plead with him that he would not report her behaviour to the Head of her house, but the girl remained quiet. After the ultimate pain, the object of her potion-induced devotion rejecting her, being humiliated before Flitwick seemed not to matter much to her. Snape rapped at the door, bending a little as the entrance to the Flitwicks' quarters had not been made for wizards of his height.

Mrs. Flitwick opened, doll-like in her lacy gown and cap, rubbing her eyes with tiny hands. After a glance upwards, she snapped: "Severus! Do you know what time it is?"

"I do indeed, Miniscula, and I apologise for the untimely disturbance," Snape replied to his colleague's wife. "I need to talk to your husband in an urgent matter that cannot wait until morning."

Mrs. Flitwick's eyes strayed to Cho and fixed on her naked ankles clearly visible beneath the cloak. Then Miniscula glanced up at Snape with a suspicious sneer. Snape did his best not to flinch. That was how they would all look at him in future – before they would lock him away, that was. Mumbling under her breath, Miniscula shuffled off into the apartment. A minute later, Flitwick appeared in a worn-out silk nightgown.

"I am very sorry to wake you up, but one of your students appears to have an acute problem," Snape told him. "We need to sit down somewhere and talk."

Trusting Snape not to wake him up for trifles, Flitwick led the two of them into his office, a normal-sized room allowing him to accommodate visitors there. Snape and Cho sat on two carved, high-backed chairs with leather upholstery, while Flitwick climbed onto his armchair. "So what is so urgent?" he asked Snape.

"Miss Chang disturbed me in my sleeping chamber and told me she had developed an ... interest in me." Snape deliberately used pauses to stress that he was talking euphemistically. "As she is not a student with a history of ... indecent behaviour, I believe she might have been afflicted by an unknown magical source. It seems unwise to leave her unsupervised under the current circumstances, but as this matter is a bit ... delicate, I would very much like to pass her supervision over to you as the Head of her house."

Flitwick had blushed deeply while Snape was talking; apparently he had understood. "What happened?" he squeaked, audibly too upset to ask in a more subtle way whether his colleague had engaged in a sexual action with a student. If he had, he certainly wouldn't tell Flitwick, Snape thought wryly. At the same time, he felt overwhelmed by guilt, even though this particular offence was one he hadn't committed. 

"Apart from Miss Chang disturbing my sleep, nothing happened," he replied evenly. "I saw to it that she returned safely to the vicinity of Ravenclaw Hall. I'd like to think that she will be ... kept safe here now." He hoped he had succeeded in making Flitwick feel a little guilty, too: If a student from his house had become a nymphomaniac, it certainly shouldn't be Snape's responsibility to baby-sit her.

Flitwick's tiny eyes darted towards Cho. "Miss Chang, what do you have to say for yourself?" he asked.

Cho, who had been crying silently, abruptly broke into loud sobs. Flitwick cast Snape a worried glance. _He thinks I abused her, Snape thought. __If I was him, I would think the same._

Flitwick handed Cho a ridiculously small handkerchief which the girl clutched to her mouth. A minor shaking spasm later, she suddenly stated quite clearly: 

"I love him with all my heart, and always will. If he does not love me back, I will die. Please, Professor Flitwick, tell him that it is beyond human cruelty to deny me his love."

Flitwick paled. "So he _did deny you ...?" he inquired, more interested in facts than in feelings._

"Oh yes, he did," Cho said, her lips audibly trembling. "Don't you know any way in which I might win his heart? Please, Professor, tell me what I have to do to become his lover." 

"Miss Chang!" Flitwick sounded genuinely appalled by this request. "You don't know what you are saying! Don't you realise that you are a student, bound by a school code of honour and morals, and that the last thing you should have is such – such _desires –" his voice cracked, "for a teacher?"_

Snape did not share his colleague's surprise. It was obvious that Cho Chang was in the strong grip of a love spell, and that all sense of customs and morality had retreated behind her overwhelming feelings. On the other hand, Flitwick now seemed to believe him that he had not touched her. This would not help much in the long run – the alchemist couple, maybe even the Unspeakables would run a test and see that the powers at work in Cho were not the ones the Ice Missiles liberated. Further tests would indicate the influence of a strong, forbidden love potion, maybe even point directly to the most forbidden of them all, to _Devotacarna. Be that as it may, soon it would become known that the object of Miss Chang's desire was to blame for her feelings, even though he had not intended to cause them – not in the student, anyway. However, by making Flitwick believe him, Snape was buying time. He would not have to deal with the consequences of his crime straight away. He handed Flitwick a strong sedative potion for the student, made his excuses and left it to the Charms teacher to deal with the delicate matter._

After he had left Flitwick's office, Snape climbed the one hundred and seventy-seven steps which led up into the Astronomy Tower. Passing through the observatory at its top, he took the door outside to the turreted gallery which encircled it. The dungeons were all very well for solitude, but some occasions seemed to demand the overview which only great heights could provide. Snape inhaled the chilly December air and turned his face upwards to the stars twinkling in the clear night sky. He had some quick thinking to do. Was there still a way out for him?

Possession of _Devotacarna – the least they could give him for that was two years in Azkaban. If they took into account that he had willingly and consciously produced the potion himself, that he had carelessly left it on his desk, that this carelessness had resulted into a student drinking it and suffering its effects, they would sentence him to far more than that. Insanity would ensue; that much was certain. The judges would look at him and see a former Death Eater who had caused a seventeen-year-old student to become enamoured in him. This student had asked him to involve in sexual action with her, had done so repeatedly and in front of a colleague, and if he was not very much mistaken, would continue to do so openly and publicly for at least a few weeks. Snape remembered Fudge's words, remembered the misgivings of parents which the Minister had mentioned. True, Fudge was dead, but that would not make anything easier. Already there was a demand for action to be taken against Hogwarts, where the murder had occurred. Lucius Malfoy, who was running for the office, was trying to convince the public that Dumbledore should be removed. They would use Snape's offence as a stick to beat the old Headmaster; they would state an example with Snape and lock him away at Azkaban until his mind had decayed like a corpse. In a sick way it was almost funny: Suddenly he was a criminal with nowhere to go, with nothing to take with him but his strange half-guilt, and with death, torture or Azkaban to fear wherever he turned – just like Remus Lupin. _

Snape leant his forehead against the cool stones which formed the turrets. Then he looked through the gap between two of them, gazed down at the ink-black land far below. The grounds and the forest were invisible. A faint glimmer showed him the outline of the lake, only interrupted by the slightly peaked roofline of the building standing at its shore. Suddenly the ground seemed to beckon to him. It would be so easy. All he had to do was swing one foot through the gap, then the other, and let himself fall. It would be quicker than Azkaban, less painful than being caught by his fellow Death Eaters. He would not have to face the shame of looking Mr. and Mrs. Chang into the eyes. Snape gazed down again, then set one foot on the lower part of the stone wall. Of course, it would cause a disgusting mess at the bottom at the tower, nothing he would want the students to see. Well, as appealing as the ground seemed, there were more hygienic ways of leaving this world. Snape set his foot back on the floor. Beside his bed, he had kept a bottle filled with quick and painless death for all these years, not for any special reason, just because the option it provided made him feel better about his life. He should be glad none of the students had found _this bottle and drained it, he contemplated as he turned towards the door to make his way downwards and die in his bed. Of course, who would be so stupid to drink an unmarked potion? Yet there was no cause to blame Cho for her abysmal naivety if he had himself to blame, whose stupidity far outran hers. It had been nothing but folly to ever brew this potion – and the unadulterated madness of a deluded, lovesick idiot to keep it even though he had decided against seducing Valerie with it. Well, he would pay with his life for his madness._

When his fingers touched the wooden door that led inside, another thought occurred to him. If he committed suicide, everyone would think him guilty – not only of brewing the potion, but of purposefully seducing the unfortunate Miss Chang. The annals of the school would remember him as a child molester. They would urinate on his grave. Dumbledore would be appalled, Valerie would be disgusted, while Black would have a laugh at his expense. Death, his only escape route, would be the least honourable path to take now, he decided. It would be the easiest way, but he had to deny himself his escape. But, he wondered, was there no honourable way to die?

There was, he realised – not to the public, not to, say, Ministry officials or to Lady Snape, but at least to the few people who mattered. They would remember him as a hero, or at least as someone who had died trying to do something useful, even if nobody else knew about it. Snape shivered as the thought continued to take shape; compared to the task he had set for himself, jumping off the Astronomy Tower sounded positively pleasant. A part of him wanted to turn around and cast himself over the stone wall before he could put his plan into action, but he willed himself to turn the handle of the door instead and walk down towards Dumbledore's office. He did not like to wake the Headmaster, whose health was no better than last summer, but he knew that speed was required. If they started the preparations now, he might be far from the school once his crime came to light.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After all was decided, he wanted to get it over with and get out of the school as quickly as possible, but of course there were still plenty of things to prepare for his departure. It wasn't so much packing as cleaning out: In his quarters and office there were quite a few potions, ingredients and rolls of parchment stashed away which he knew he had to dispose of before he left for good. Dumbledore had decreed that he would have to inform one person ahead of time, too – namely his successor as a teacher, Roary Lyons. After all, Hogwarts needed the skills and knowledge of a Potions master in difficult times, and Roary was knowledgeable even if in some ways inexperienced.

Just after he had thrown a large stack of potion recipes into the fire, deciding that they conveyed the kind of knowledge which might be harmful to others rather than helpful, there was a knock at the door. Snape did not reply; he wished to see nobody. However, in accordance to the general school rule that nobody respected the Potions master's privacy anymore, the door opened nevertheless, and Valerie entered. She looked bleary-eyed and dishevelled, which Snape attributed to the fact that it was barely six o'clock in the morning yet, and therefore not even remotely the time when she usually condescended to get up. Snape decided to ignore her and added another roll of parchment to the evil-smelling fire.

"Roary told me you're going to Voldemort to spy on him," Valerie said hoarsely. 

Curse Dumbledore – here they had agreed on something top secret which nobody was supposed to know, and the first person he met had already heard it through the grapevine. If that kept up, his chances of survival were actually not zero, but less than that. Not wanting to encourage this kind of talk, he leafed through one of his notebooks, tearing out a few pages and leaving others for Roary: Of the many potions he had developed himself, some might actually help the fight against Voldemort or preserve the lives of Hogwarts' students and teachers.

"You're not going," Valerie said as if she was in a position to command him. "It's sheer madness, and you know it. He'll kill you, that's all you will achieve with that – except that before he kills you, he'll cut you into pieces and put a Crucio on each separate limb."

Snape took his quill and corrected his own writing in the notebook – he had improved the potion recipe over time, but never corrected his notes because he knew the alteration by heart. Roary, of course, wouldn't.

"Didn't you snirking hear me?" Varlerta almost shouted and tore the notebook from his hand. She slammed the item onto his desk and repeated: "You're not shnirking going!"

"_Professor_ Varlerta, would you terribly mind letting me do my work?" he asked her, cursing the audible tremble in his voice.

"Your work," she hissed, her anger-distorted face uncomfortably close to his now, "is to be this school's Potions master, and to help us fight Voldemort. It is not, I repeat, _not, to go to Voldemort just so he can make mincemeat of you. I don't care what you have or haven't done, or why nobody cares to tell me what the shnirk is going on, but I'm not going to let you throw your life away on some shnirking bullshit plan!"_

"Oh, you won't let me? Well, let me tell you something, _Professor_ – I happen not to take any orders from you. It's none of your bloody business, so get lost and let me get my office straightened out."

"You think you're so damn smart," she said with a sneer. "You think you tricked him last time, and you'll do it again. You think you can just go there and say: 'Hi, Voldy, I'm back,' and he'll give you a welcoming hug and say: 'Hi Snape, never mind the fact that you betrayed me last time around – I'll forgive you and trust you again. Welcome back to the Death Eater club. Have a cookie.' Well, if you're that deluded, let me give you an update on reality. It's not going to happen like that. As soon as he sees you, he'll just kill you without thinking twice about it – except for showing off a bit by torturing you."

"I'm glad you tell me all this, as you are, of course, such an expert on Lord Voldemort," he replied, knowing his words would sting, as she had probably never met the creature which had fathered her. Of course, he knew that she was probably right: The likelihood that Voldemort would not trust him in spite of his precautions was alarmingly high. Even in the best of cases, he would be severely punished for his past betrayal. It would be painful, that much was certain.

"I don't need to be an expert to know that he'll kill you," she said, her voice strangely softened. "Don't go."

"We urgently need a spy among the Death Eaters," he tried to explain. "Our situation is desperate. We need to know what he is planning." Of course, that wasn't his main reason for going, but if she didn't know yet, he would certainly not tell her.

She bent her head and seemed to survey the papers on his desk. After a pause, she replied: "Then let me go instead. He doesn't know me yet. I mean, he knows who I am, of course, but I've never betrayed him, and I don't think he knows exactly on whose side I am. Maybe I can convince him that I've finally come to be his loyal daughter."

The thought of Valerie going to Voldemort was somehow even worse than the thought of himself going back to the Dark Lord. Picturing her in a Death Eater's hood and cloak, branded with the Dark Mark, forced to kill and to torture at Voldemort's bidding, made him physically sick. He shook his head. "Trust me, he knows that you are with Dumbledore. Don't think your chances of surviving such a mission are any better than mine."

Valerie seemed to study his shelves of pickled potion ingredients. He could see her fists were clenched. It was an ordeal to have her in the room; her presence tore at his resolve. After they had stood in silence for a while, she said, her gaze firmly on the jars of reptile innards:

"Roary said there was a potion accident, and that a student was harmed. He says you are facing Azkaban. If that is your reason for going to Voldemort, it is an exceptionally stupid one. Others got away, too. Sirius and Remus got away. They are – safe now." He could hear her voice crack. In an odd way it touched him that she was lying for him. There had been no news of Black and Lupin since they had left on the plane to America, not a single word; Roary, who had been supposed to pick them up at the airport, had missed them. Nobody knew what had happened to them, or where they were now. Snape knew Valerie must be worrying herself silly.

"Don't trouble yourself," he replied, trying to sound cold and distant. "I have already decided that I will carry out my plan. Nothing you could say or do could make me change my mind." 

This, of course, wasn't entirely true. As she stood before him with her dishevelled hair and her tear-stained cheeks, he could think of many things she could have said to change his mind. Suddenly he thought of Black, who without a moment's hesitation had proclaimed he would go wherever Lupin went. If she were to tell him that she would share his exile, that she would be his whatever happened, all past decisions would become null and void. But, of course, she would say no such thing.

"They will have to modify your memory, Roary says," she said almost angrily. "They will have to mess with your mind so that you forget most of who you are, because when Voldemort tortures you, you can't tell them any of our plans, and you won't tell him that you are not really on our side, because you have forgotten yourself. This will give you a slight chance to survive with him, but it will also make it likely that you will lose yourself. Even _if_ you survive, and _if_ Voldemort does not drive you insane with his torture, you may never remember who you really are. It's madness, and you know it. No sane person should ever permit anyone to mess with his or her own mind, that's what you said yourself once. Remember Dolores Lestrange, remember the effect a memory charm had on her. Do you want to end up like that, someone who has forgotten his real self?"

She should not have brought up Dolores Lestrange; the thought increased his feelings of being ill and contaminated. He felt a ridiculous urge to shout at Valerie, to shatter all breakables in his office, to run away as fast as he could, or to take her into his arms and bury his face in her hair. Hoping to retain control, he rammed his trembling hands into his robes' pockets and clutched the flesh of his thighs through the fabric. She seemed adamant to destroy his resolve which cost him so much strength to uphold. Did she think he was not scared out of his wits? Did she really think he could bear to listen to the things she was telling him much longer? He needed her to disappear from his sight, otherwise he would bring shame onto his name by pleading with her instead: 'Valerie, will you accompany me to some faraway country and spend the rest of your life in hiding with me?' No, he could never ask that. 

"Please mind your own business, Professor," he replied to her instead, avoiding her eyes.

"Do you want me to beg you not to go to your death?" she half-whispered. "Do you want me to kneel before you and plead with you for your own life and sanity? If that's what you want, then just say so." Even more softly, she added: "Because I'd do it."

He told his heart to turn into stone, not to heed her pleas. Spying on Voldemort was the correct choice of action, the only one which might save his honour after his crime. 

"Get out and leave me to my preparations," he said blandly.

Her sharp intake of breath sounded almost like a sob. "A long time ago, you and me used to be friends, even though you pretend that this time never existed. Early this year, I did you wrong. I misused our friendship, disregarding the possible consequences my actions might have for you. I regretted what I did quite soon and apologised – at least I think I did. You did not forgive me. Now you plan to go away. It is likely that we will never meet again. I am asking your forgiveness once more. Verus, will you not make it up with me?"

_Forgive you that you took another man for your lover? How could I ever do that, Valerie?_

"Yes, sure, I forgive you, no offence taken," he said in the flattest voice he could muster, knowing that she knew he did not mean it. "Now, if you do not mind, I still have a number of things of which I have to take care."__

"Fine," she snapped and vigorously rubbed her robes' sleeve over her face. "So be it." She fiddled with something that hung around her neck, then pulled a small clay pendant on a leather chord out from beneath her robes – a plain, but slightly bulging amulet with little holes in it. Before he could express his disconcertment, she put the item into his hand.

"Put that on when you go," she said in a deadened voice. "Never take it off. It is a device that will help you not to lose yourself, and it will bring you luck. It is an ocarina. I hope that if you have a chance to play it, it will make you remember who you are, who you were and whose side you are on just at the time when it is safe to do so."

"Va- –  Professor, that's ridiculous," he murmured, checking himself just in time. The object felt coarse and unmagical in his palm. "Even _if, I repeat, __if this thing has any magical powers whatsoever, I will not be able to benefit from them. The Death Eaters will strip me and take everything I have on me, be sure of that. Your ocarina will only fall into the hands of Voldemort if you give it to me. Keep your toy." And with these words, he tried to give the pendant back to her. She, however, would not take it, but put her hands behind her back in a refusal to accept the object back._

"Try to keep it on you by all means," she said. "Hide it in your mouth or in your – well, whatever turns out to be possible. It is an inconspicuous little thing, and I've observed that people do not tend to notice it much."

"That's ridiculous," he repeated, unable to think of something more convincing to say.

"For Keranta's sake, Verus, can't you for once do what I shnirking tell you?" she positively shouted at him. Their gazes met. For a moment, he lost himself in her grey eyes, framed by dark lashes and very fine crowfeet. His whole body seemed to feel the impact. He moved his head very slightly downwards. She returned his minimal nod. 

Following a sudden impulse, he took something from his desk and pressed it into her palm – a small, flat object he had found while tidying up his office, a thing he had not thought of in a long time. She stole a fleeting glance at it. For a moment, her whole body expressed recognition. She did not utter any words, nor were any needed. Their eyes met for one last time; then she turned on her heels and left his office, noiselessly closing the door behind her. He flinched, as he had half expected she would slam it. Then, as if in slow motion, Snape hung the ocarina around his neck and hid it under his robes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After he had packed his personal affairs into two wooden crates and nailed them shut, wondering idly whether anyone would ever bother unpacking them and find his CD collection, Snape went up to Dumbledore's office. After determinedly operating the gargoyle, he found himself hesitating in front of the door. His hand on the doorknob, he remembered how shattered Dumbledore had looked when Snape had woken him with the bad news and revealed his plan to him. 

For one thing, the 'accident', as Snape was inclined to call the occurrence involving Cho Chang and him, was a nasty thing to happen at any school. It did not look good. Parents would worry. Much worse, the 'accident' would all but destroy the school's reputation in the current situation. Between Icy Fingers and the injuries caused by Ice Missiles, rumours of a League camp, rumours of Black's presence at the school, an escaped Hippogriff, a renegade Death Eater and Lord Voldemort's daughter, things had not looked overly presentable at Hogwarts in the first place. Then the Minister of Magic had been murdered here, and the culprit had fled, unhindered by teachers and Headmaster. Now a girl was suffering the unpleasant effects of an accidentally imbibed potion – and again, before the culprit, the said renegade Death Eater, would be found and punished, he would be gone, presumably to rejoin his old master, Lord Voldemort. That, to put matters kindly, would look shnirking awful. Investiwitches and –wizards would practically camp at the school, trying to find out why everything was going wrong at the moment. Even if law enforcement would not be up to its usual standards due to the confusion about Fudge's murder, the consequences for the school could hardly be predicted. No headmaster could be anything like pleased by the current development, and he, Snape, had made things a lot worse. 

For another matter, Snape knew that Dumbledore had been relying on him. How he hated to disappoint the old Headmaster! Sure, he _might_ accomplish something useful with his mission, but then again, it was more likely that he was killed instantly, accomplishing nothing whatsoever. Dumbledore had been reluctant to let Snape go even in the current circumstances; he had made it clear that the Potions master was needed at Hogwarts. "Your place is here, Severus," he had said, like he had said to him every single time Snape had suggested he should vacate his post. Never before, however, had Dumbledore said it so insistently and with so much feeling. In a way, this was what scared Snape most: He would not only be missed because he really had a job to do at Hogwarts, but also for himself, as Dumbledore had made unequivocally clear.

Snape had always respected the Headmaster; he had admired him and had been grateful for the great wizard's kindness. To be respected in return had been one of his foremost goals in the past. Of course, they had had plenty of disagreements which had kept them at a certain distance from each other, a distance Snape found comfortable. Now, after all these years, however, he had to realise that Dumbledore actually seemed to _like_ Snape – to care for him almost in a way he might have cared for one of his dead children once upon a time. In a way, the mere thought was unbearable. Dumbledore was old; he was sick; he was forsaken, and, in a way, orphaned by the betrayal of his own son. Snape would never go as far as saying he could take Evnissyen's place, but he had suddenly realised that by leaving, and possibly by dying, he was just one more person deserting the old wizard.  

Just when opening the door in front of him had become a nearly impossible task to him, he felt the doorknob turn between his fingers; Dumbledore himself opened and beckoned him inside. As he followed him inside, Snape noticed that the Headmaster was leaning heavily on his wooden-and-silver staff, something he had to do at times, but avoided doing in front of the students out of sheer vanity. Snape almost smiled to himself. 

"I wish you'd reconsider, Severus," Dumbledore said after he had sat down behind his desk. Fawkes stated his agreement with a single, mournful note. "You act like a man who feels he deserves death, but if the things you tell me are true, you do not."

"They are true." Snape tried to keep his face emotionless. He remained standing in a step away from the desk, unwilling to get too comfortable. "As for me deserving or not deserving death, the sentence may depend on the judge. I am innocent of seducing Miss Chang, but I am guilty of breaking the law, of brewing a potion that is strictly forbidden."

"Certainly not the kind of guilt that should be punished with death," Dumbledore countered.

"You do not think so? By law, at least, it is punished with a juicy Azkaban sentence. I, however, am not willing to undergo this punishment. I know the place. I have seen the way it drives witches and wizards insane. I am not going there."

Dumbledore nodded gravely. "And yet you risk your soundness of mind if you let me modify your memory. You know that, don't you?" It was not really a question.

"At least I may be doing something useful. If I go into Azkaban, or even go into hiding like Black and Lupin," he tried his best to pronounce the names in a neutral manner for Dumbledore's sake, "I will be utterly useless."

Dumbledore nodded again. Snape could not help noticing how depressed the Headmaster seemed. After a long, long silence, he reminded the Headmaster: "I have come to you because I am ready for the charm."

The old Headmaster shook his head, as if to disagree, but then he said: "We agreed on the following. I will alter your memory so that you will not remember you are going to Voldemort to spy; you will think you are completely going over to his side again. Only once a month, at every new moon, you will remember your true aim for half an hour and try to report to me or send me a message. You will lose access to a large part of your memory; instead, you will have a shallow concept of who you are supposed to be, what course your life is supposed to have taken, and which views you are supposed to hold. This will protect you from giving in to torture. As we both know that Voldemort _will_ torture you, we will devise two further means of protection. For one, you will not feel the Crucio curse down to the core of your being, as that part of you is hidden from your own perception. Therefore, you will feel pain, but you will be able to bear it and not go insane from Crucio no matter how often it is employed. For another, we will implant into your memory the 'bait', the 'hidden agenda' we agreed on – a thing for Voldemort to extract from you by torture. We agreed that if he found out nothing unexpected from you, it would look far more suspicious to him than if he discovered that an evil plan of yourself was behind your almost incomprehensible step of returning to him. We agreed that I should install all this in your mind. You are perfectly aware that the charm may cause you permanent loss of memory, and that your undertaking may cost you your life, if things go wrong."

At first, Snape wondered why Dumbledore was telling him all this again, but then he realised that the Headmaster was turning the content of their earlier conversation into a kind of _contract_: He wanted Snape to hear once more what was going to happen to him if he had his memory modified; he did not want him to run blindly into peril. To ease the old wizard's mind, Snape patiently heard him out, then replied: "I am aware of all of this, and I agree to it." 

He shook off a slight bout of shame remembering the bait the two of them had agreed on, the information they would let Voldemort forcefully extract from Snape: It had been necessary to confess some of his inner feelings to the Headmaster, and even to utter them had made the Potions master uncomfortable. The feeling of shame, however, soon evaporated. Once you had passed a certain point, Snape contemplated, once you had, for example, decided that death would be preferable to life, many things ceased to matter so much. For example, of course he was afraid of the torture; of course he was afraid of losing himself due to the memory charm, and he was afraid of death. On the other hand, a few hours ago, he had wanted to die, the quicker the better. From that perspective, he had exceeded his life expectancy already. He was hoping to detach himself from his self, from his body and mind – first by wanting to die, then by giving up his life in another way: Once his memory was modified, he would no longer be himself. He might feel pain, but he would not feel it himself: The other Snape, the Death Eater, would feel it. That Death Eater would also have to kneel in front of Voldemort and plead for the privilege of serving him again; he would once more have to commit horrors in his name, _if_ Voldemort let him live. But this person would no longer be Snape himself; it would only be a tool, the ghost of someone who had jumped down from the Astronomy Tower tonight.

Dumbledore rose awkwardly from his seat; his bones must be bothering him, Snape thought. For a fleeting moment, he wondered why the Headmaster, one of the Ice Missile victims, had never been de-wanded. Surely he was more powerful of mind than students who often did not seem to know what they were doing even if they were not controlled by the Enemy. The Ice Missile should not be able to control the Headmaster. Yet when Dumbledore stood before him, his wand in his hand, a strange, almost triumphant light in his eyes, Snape suddenly felt afraid of him. He must have flinched, because Dumbledore put his wand back in his pocket and gave him one of his kind, pitying looks.

"Won't you reconsider, Severus?" he asked again. "I don't want you to die, and I don't want you in the claws of Voldemort under any circumstances. No matter how much we might need a spy – we need you alive and with us much more urgently. There is always another way. I am so afraid for you. You once tricked the Enemy, and might think you will trick him again. But please remember that he is well warned of you, and that he is not likely to ever trust you again. His wrath may be lethal. Won't you reconsider?"

"I have made up my mind, Dumbledore," Snape replied, unwilling to delay much longer. Soon the school would have to contact Cho's parents, and he wanted to be well away by then. He did not know where else to go.

Dumbledore sought Snape's gaze and held it for a long time. "I wish you the best of luck for your dangerous mission, and for all that comes afterwards," he said. "Say goodbye to me now, Severus, because if fate will have it so, we may never meet again." Then, unexpectedly for Snape, he hugged him firmly. Snape was taken aback. He could not remember being hugged, ever, by anyone. The sensation of Dumbledore's bony but strong arms around his back was strange; so was feeling a strand of the Headmaster's long, white hair touch his face. He did not know how to react. When Dumbledore let go of him, he looked at his feet, unsure of what to say. Finally, he murmured: 

"Goodbye, and the best of luck to you, too, Albus. I am ready." 

Dumbledore only nodded, and caught Snape's gaze for one last time. Then he raised his wand to  Snape's forehead.


	18. Aisha

18 – Aisha 

From a distance, the castle, surrounded by the snowy grounds and gently falling snowflakes, looked like a scene from a Disney movie. It did not look like a place where real people with real lives and real problems would live, Aisha mused. Rather, it seemed like a cliché come true, like an American idea of a 'romantic' European castle, almost like a parody of the biggest of Christian holidays. It had been bad here in summer, she decided; now, on Christmas, amidst falling snow on the outside and with all its glittering (and singing!) decorations on the inside, it was almost unbearable.

British witches and wizards were _different, she decided. In the States, things could become pretty weird around wizard bars or magical parties, or maybe _surreal_ would be the appropriate word. However, maybe due to a certain disregard for tradition, around American witches and wizards, things did not look so __tacky, so very Oz-like.___

She was, of course, not supposed to be out in the grounds on her own. Roary and Varlerta had insisted that she was to stay inside unless she was accompanied by a grown witch or wizard. However, Aisha was not a student, and neither she was a toddler: She was used to her freedom, and she certainly would defend it. Consenting not to explore the Forest, which was supposed to hold bizarre dangers, was a compromise, but, magic or no magic, she would not be locked inside like a kid. Inside, everything was amazing, and fascinating, and quite often pretty, but it was also a bit stifling. She needed fresh air, needed to be out in the snow, needed to be on her own every once in a while the way other people might need a cigarette. 

It wasn't only the singing suits of armour and the fluttering fairies that got to her. In Varlerta's building there was none of that nonsense, and yet Aisha found it worse than the castle. In Aisha's eyes, her friend Varlerta had always been tough and invincible. Well, not _always_ invincible, and certainly not on the pinball machine – but neither did she know Varlerta as a woman who moaned and fretted. Since the rest of the _Magic Mushrooms_ had come to the castle, Varlerta had not been well, though. Listening to a message on his answer machine too late, Roary had failed to meet Sirius and Remus at JFK Airport. Since then, Varlerta's sweetheart and his strange wizard friend had not been sighted. Although Varlerta had given them addresses of people they could trust, the two British wizards had not turned up at any of them. They had not written or called; only the passports they had borrowed had been shipped back by snail mail, addressed in typed letters. Something had gone wrong, and not even Roary had been able to find out what exactly, which was really saying something. Varlerta was beside herself with worry.

To make matters worse, Varlerta's old (though estranged) friend from school had disappeared from the school, too. Nobody had bothered with telling Aisha what the deal was, but she could tell it was bad. Since the Potion Master's disappearance, Aisha felt that nothing could comfort her old friend Varlerta. True, she functioned as a teacher, but was too far remote to receive any form of comfort from someone as powerless as her Muggle drummer. Aisha tried, but felt utterly helpless. She would try again to be a good friend to Varlerta later, but every once in a while, she needed time by herself, time where she could just be what she was, a simple Muggle musician.

So far, she had managed to sneak away twice in the wake of some teacher, and would sneak back into the castle, or maybe into Varlerta's building, with someone who knew how to open the doors. Nobody had questioned her comings and goings so far, which made her wonder whether Roary and Varlerta hadn't maybe exaggerated in their insistence that she should not be out on her own. Here she was, enjoying a nice and very quiet walk in the snow for the second time, and where were all the dangers? 

Maybe she shouldn't have tempted fate she thought, when someone called out to her, someone coming from the Forest. From afar, she did not recognise the wizard, maybe because his face was hidden by a large, woollen scarf – she supposed it was a 'he' because his build and walk seemed to suggest so. Glimpsing over her shoulder to check out the distance to the castle, she wondered for a moment whether she should run for it before she found out whether the person approaching would be hostile or friendly – before it was too late. Then the wizard waved and beckoned to her; as the scarf slipped off his face, she not only recognise him, but saw that he was smiling. Aisha waved and smiled back, prompted by the sight of a face that had spontaneously appealed to her when she had first seen it. She started to walk towards him, then halted in her steps. When she had last seen this face, the meeting had been far from pleasant to her. Although the incident had remained inexplicable, she certainly had not forgotten it. Neither had she failed to hear some of the stories about this particular wizard which put a sudden fear into her heart. Last but not least, she knew that he should not be in these grounds at all; he should be far away. Still unsure whether to run away or go and meet him, Aisha finally opted for the latter. Mysteries were piling up, and she was eager to solve them. Varlerta would never forgive her if she ran away now and they never found out afterwards what had been going on. 

"Hey, Re-" When she saw him raise a finger to his lips, Aisha checked herself at the last moment. Maybe she should not call out loudly the name of the wizard who had offed the Minister of Magic. 

He beckoned again, waiting for her on the path that led around the forest. Although she felt uncomfortable, Aisha decided it was too late to change her mind now. She walked towards him until they were at speaking distance.

"What are you doing here?" she asked him. "Shouldn't you be in the States? They are worrying themselves crazy about you. Where's Sirius?"

"Aisha." The wizard smiled his gentle smile again; around his soulful green eyes, many lines creased. "It's good to see you. How is everyone at the castle – having a nice holiday?"

"Don't evade my questions," Aisha chided. "What are you doing here? Varlerta said they might kill you if they found you here in Britain."

"It is kind of you to worry about me," Remus Lupin replied. 

"And about Sirius," Aisha reminded him, trying hard not to blush. Suspicious or not, she had found him attractive at first sight, but did not particularly want him to know.

"He's safe," Lupin assured her, his eyes serious. "I left him with friends in the States. It was too dangerous for him to come back – they still believe him a murderer."

"Oh, do they now?" Aisha said, sarcasm in her voice. "They do not _happen_ to believe the same of you, do they? Why aren't you safe with friends in the States, too?"

Lupin smiled gently, but kept his eyes on his feet. "I should be, I suppose. I admit coming back here is quite dangerous. However, there are things more important than danger, things that can't wait."

"Things you can't tell me about, as I am just a Muggle, and therefore not worth to even know about your shoelaces," she added a little bitterly. She hated to be left in the dark about so many things. Roary and Varlerta were her _friends_, the people with whom she shared her worries. Why would none of the witches and wizards confide in her like she would confide in them? She was not able to hurl things across the room with a wave of her wand – well, big effing deal! She was neither stupid nor a chicken.

"Aisha." Lupin touched her shoulder with a mittened hand. Through many layers of textile and downs, Aisha felt the touch affect her. "Won't you trust me?" he added.

"Why didn't you help me that night at the _Basilisk Bar_?" she asked. "You pretended you didn't know me, and would have left me to a couple of hired wands. They might have killed me, but you didn't care, did you?" As she spoke, she realised she had meant to ask this all along: 'Why did you desert me when I when I needed you most? Why do all guys I am attracted to care shit about me?' Varlerta had told her that Lupin had denied being present at the _Basilisk Bar that night, had even denied ever having been to the States before his current flight. She wanted to know for herself now that she saw him face to face. That's why she had taken the risk, why she had decided to face him instead of running away._

Lupin once more glanced downwards, avoiding her eyes. "I get these ... spells from time to time," he said softly. "I was hit with an Ice Missile, you know, and sometimes I am ... just not quite myself. I even murdered a man, as you pointed out." He suddenly looked up. When his eyes met hers, to Aisha it felt like physical contact. "Look, I really am sorry, and I am glad to see you well, and I am glad that I get a chance to apologise for it in person. Aisha, will you forgive me?"

Guys. They always said things like that, and most of the times they were just uttering words. Aisha tried to remind herself of that, tried to stay angry, but failed. "Will you come up to the castle with me?" she finally asked.

Mutely Lupin shook his head. "I can't – not yet, anyway. There are things I have to do before I can meet everybody." After a pause, he added: "Aisha, will you do me a favour? Could you keep to yourself that you have met me, that I am in Britain? Just for a while, until I sort things out?"

This, Aisha knew straight away, was highly suspicious. Why would he not want his friends to know he was back? Why would he keep them worrying, not only about him, but also about Sirius? "That's kind of stupid," she replied, hoping she could needle him into telling her more. "It's freezing cold out here. Where are you staying if not in the castle? What will you eat?"

He almost grinned. "It's sweet of you to worry about me. I'll manage, though."

"But it's Christmas. Come up and celebrate with us," she objected a bit lamely.

Softly, he laughed. "Christmas at Hogwarts ... that was always enjoyable. You know what? If you can manage, smuggle me a bit of food outside. – I can't explain to you why I can't come up to the castle yet, but I can only hope you will not betray me." 

She must have looked doubtful, because he started to hum that Khalid song which had her name in it: "Aicha, Aicha écoutez-moi." That did it for her. She knew she should have questioned his intentions, should generally have a mistrust of someone asking her to conceal things from her friends. But, alas, Aisha had a long history of falling for pretty faces over and over again. "I won't say anything – yet," she promised reluctantly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Mushrooms weren't going to play at Varlerta's Christmas party; Varlerta said she didn't want to impose on anybody with her music, but Aisha suspected the real reason was that her friend wasn't feeling well. Instead, Ginny's (so far nameless) band was scheduled for a brief gig. Aisha had been invited to supervise a few practise sessions and help the young musicians improve their playing. She rather enjoyed that, since she found them reasonably skilled and willing to work on their music. Ginny had recently improved a lot; the bass player, Rhonda, had only started a few months ago, but wasn't doing badly either. Ginny had told Aisha that since the girl had been de-wanded and suspended from the Quidditch team due to the effect of a magic-impeding potion, music had gained much importance for her. Jules, the guitar player, had been at his instrument the longest; his uncle, a rock musician himself, had taught him a lot. Apart from Ginny, he was the main driving force in the band; he wrote his own songs and knew how to pick up guitar parts from a CD. Neville was doing alright too, although Aisha had advised him to try and sing more aggressively. His response had been a look of bewilderment. Sing aggressively? It seemed his talent was much rather to sing with feeling, to put himself into the music – and as he didn't get angry a lot, it seemed difficult for him to convey such emotions with his voice. Aisha also noticed that he kept dropping hints about playing his flute in the band, so she asked him openly and in front of the others why he didn't include a flute solo somewhere. She had found his response rather touching:

"We are a rock band," he had murmured, his head drooping just a little bit.

"So rock bands don't have flute solos?" Aisha needled on.

"I suppose not," had been Neville's quiet response.

Aisha had made a show of sighing. "I always thought that among other things, rock was about open-mindedness – about expressing yourself, your thoughts, your emotions and your body, about a kind of musical freedom of speech. Of course, you always get these guys in the band who think rock is all about strict obedience to genre rules. You know, someone comes up with this really cool guitar riff, and you find this groove which fits it but also changes and adds something really unique to it – an unusual groove, which makes you want to move other parts of your body apart from just banging your head. And then there's someone in the band – preferably a longhaired guy with a perm and spandex pants – who says: 'We can't play that because it isn't real heavy metal.' And you think: 'Heck, no, but it's a cool groove, and I want to play it anyway.' In my opinion, you should, you know. If it sounds good, if you all like it, do it, and never mind the rules somebody else has set for a genre."

The kids had all stared at her for a moment, maybe because Aisha wasn't normally one for making speeches. Then Neville had asked: "You think I should play a flute solo, then? Maybe in _Scaffold?" Aisha had nodded vigorously. __Scaffold was a song written by Jules which discussed a strange device obstructing the students' path in the castle. Its lyrics, of course, were to be taken slightly metaphorically, comparing life to an incomprehensible obstacle course. In the middle of the song, there was a slow, slightly mournful instrumental part where the guitar played arpeggios; it was predestined for a solo. Neville had announced he would prepare to play one at the next practise session, the last one before the band's gig on Christmas._

Last but not really least, there was that younger girl, Kay. There was something strange about her presence at the band practices: Nobody paid a lot of attention to her, and most of the time, she kept to herself behind her keyboard, its volume tuned down so low that Aisha found it difficult to hear what she was playing. When Aisha asked the girl to turn herself up, Kay said she did not dare, because she did not always know what to play. The absence of sheet music appeared to intimidate her. Aisha tried to help. Unfortunately, she wasn't much of an expert on keyboard playing. She knew which key had which name, and that you often used every other key to make a chord, but that was about it. After trying in vain to make sense of Kay's 'Pop Piano' book, Aisha had even gotten Varlerta to help. Apathetic as the witch teacher was, you could usually get her interested in a musical problem. Therefore, now, on the day before the gig, Kay played a couple of soft, high-pitched chords in _Creep_ which really did not belong there, but did not sound totally out of place either; for _Scaffold_, the girl herself had found a nice tune to play in the verse. It wasn't much, but it was a start.

Aisha walked along the empty hallways of the big castle, wondering whether she should break the promise she had given Lupin, whether she should tell on him. Something was definitely fishy about him. Surely there was no reason for her friends not to know of his presence, provided there was no foul play involved. If Lupin had a hidden agenda, though, it was really wrong to keep his secret. However, a promise was a promise, Aisha thought, the Khalid song in her head. She'd always thought that a man would sing it to her as a means of courtship; unfortunately, none had ever bothered. 

Having arrived at Roary's and Pat's door, Aisha knocked. She would not be fooled by a pretty face again. She would tell on the guy. Roary would know how to handle things. True, Varlerta was the one who was an official teacher at this castle, while Roary was only a substitute, but on the other hand, everyone always ran to Roary if things went wrong. Besides, even though she hated to think that thought, 'Lupin returned on his own' might mean 'Sirius is dead.' Surely Varlerta would think the same as soon as Aisha told her. She would very much prefer to find out more about this matter before she dumped the news on her friend.

Pat opened and kindly told her to come in. Aisha felt as if a load had been taken off her shoulders. She liked all of her band members, basically considered them her family. In this big, incomprehensible magic castle, however, it sometimes felt if Pat was the only kindred spirit she knew; after all, he was the only Muggle besides her. Unlike the others, he still jumped when walls budged and stairs twisted; he too had a hard time coping with house-elves and singing suits of armour. People who did not know Pat very well often thought him a talented bass player and song-writer, but otherwise quite boring. Aisha knew differently. Pat was quiet like many who played his instrument, but those who took the trouble of getting to know him better soon found out that he was not only sharp as a needle, but also an exceptionable kind person. 

Huddled on the sofa, in her hand a cup of Pat's famous cappuccino, a platter of British biscuits in front of her, Aisha told him of her encounter. Pat shook his head in a thoughtful way.

"I can't begin to fathom why he would come back here if his life is in danger," he replied. "Even fishier is that he won't tell you. Whatever is going on, something's wrong here. I think you should tell Roary and Varlerta."

"I promised," Aisha mumbled, her mouth half-hidden by the biscuit she was nibbling. She felt ashamed of her naivety; ashamed; of her unwillingness to betray the wizard she had met outside.

"The least you can expect is that he tells you what's going on. If he won't trust you, there's no reason why you should trust him," Pat replied, as always someone whose 'common sense' actually did make sense to Aisha. 

"So I go back and make him tell me," she replied, nodding.

Pat looked doubtful. "Under normal circumstances, I'd certainly say so. However, if there really _is something wrong with this Lupin chap, I wonder whether it's dangerous to insist – I mean, with him being a wizard and a werewolf and everything, and you being neither."_

"He didn't harm me when we met today," Aisha objected. "If he has something evil on his mind, it might have been smarter to kill me straight away because I saw and recognised him."

Pat shrugged. "True, but what about that time at the _Basilisk Bar_? He certainly didn't behave very friendly then." 

"He explained that to me and apologised – he says he gets these strange spells sometimes and doesn't know what he's doing," Aisha found herself defending Lupin.

"Hope he doesn't go into any kind of 'spell' when you next meet him," Pat replied sceptically, his brows tilted upwards. "You think there is any way you can enhance his trust, you know, assure him that you are on his side?"

"He asked for food," Aisha replied with a sigh. "If I could get my hands on some in this place...." Suddenly, she tearfully broke out: "But I don't even know where the damn kitchen is! I wish I was home in my own place, with my own kitchen, and my own decisions to make. Oh, if we only could go home! I'm scared of this castle, and scared of all this magic, and these strange politics, and I hate being locked in and being treated like a child!"

Pat put a hand on her shoulder and provided an original American Kleenex with the other. He seemed just about to reply to her when there was a rattling noise at the door. Aisha and Pat exchanged glances. Without him actually saying so, Aisha knew that Pat would keep their conversation confidential even to his lover until they had reached a decision about what to do next.

"How do you know there's a singer outside the door?" Pat drawled at Roary. The singer of the _Magic Mushrooms gave them a crooked smile: "Am I interrupting something?" he asked. "And besides, it's because of you Muggles that I have to bother with these things in the first place instead of using a nice and easy password for the door." Of course, Roary knew the correct reply to the old joke question: 'He doesn't know when to come in and can't find the right key.'_

"Well, _we Muggles are having a little session of group therapy, because there's only so much magic we can take at a time," Pat replied, pretending to be offended. Roary snorted, but Aisha felt his sympathetic glance. She knew they were only making a show of snapping at each other because they knew she hated it when others caught her crying. Knowing the couple well, she could also read in their movements, in their looks, that Roary knew that there was something they weren't telling him, but that he for now he was refraining from pressing them in any way. _

"Lyons, how can we get food in this castle?" Pat asked a little cheekily. Aisha felt tempted to ask him not to push matters.

"Food?" Roary looked aghast. "Don't tell me they are not feeding you right! The house-elves are cooking their cute little bums off! You know that there's a big feast coming up tomorrow night, don't you?"

Pat made a face. "Yeah, but it's all that _British_ stuff. It tastes bland – you said so yourself. There's not a touch of garlic, hardly any coriander, no curry, no cumin, not to mention asafoetida, and not a chilli pepper in sight!"

"Yeah, I'd love to cook just once," Aisha sighed, joining in on the game. "It would take my mind off things, you know, make me feel almost normal for half an hour. Just a couple of spices, maybe a bit of couscous, just anything but Yorkshire pudding."

Pat made a face and nodded. "Don't tell Var that we said that," he requested. "She might take offence, with her being British by birth, you know. But it would be lovely to eat something decent every now and then, you know. That's why we've been wondering where we can find the kitchen." 

"You're not pregnant, are you?" Roary's doubtful look was clearly directed at Pat, not at Aisha. Pat shrugged nonchalantly. Roary laughed. "Okay, you pigs, I will show you where you can find the realm of the house-elves. They will certainly give you enough food to stuff yourselves three times over, and maybe you can teach them a few things about international cuisine."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Left to their own devices, Pat and Aisha shamelessly exploited the goodwill of the creepy little creatures who ruled Hogwarts' kitchen. While Pat was teaching the house-elves a lesson on spicy samosas, Aisha went out to meet Lupin, a basket of goodies in her hand. This time, she did not need to worry about opening the door: The house-elves had never seen a Muggle before and were very sympathetic; one agreed to let Aisha out into the grounds, and to let her in again upon a common whistle. 

After strolling around the darkening grounds on her own for a while, wondering if she should go in again, somebody touched her shoulder from behind. Whirling around, she found herself face to face with Lupin. In spite of herself, she found her heart skip a beat in joy. _I can't trust __him, she reminded herself._

"I brought you something to eat," she said, holding the basket towards him.

The wizard smiled a luminous smile. "Aisha, you are a true treasure," he told her.

Trying to repress the pleasure she felt upon hearing this, she said in the strictest voice she could muster: "You can trust me, you know. I didn't betray your secret – not yet, anyway. But I don't understand why it has to be kept, and why you returned to Scotland at all. I have the impression that you have a reason not to trust me, and that reason sounds like foul play to me. If you can't prove me wrong, or at least convince me that you do not have something evil in mind, I _will tell my friends about it, be sure of that."_

Lupin sighed. "I suppose you're right," he said. "It does sound fishy. The reason I'm here, and the reason I don't want anybody to know yet…" Quite unexpectedly, he put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. Unsure whether she should be pleased or slam her knee between his legs, Aisha stiffened until she realised that his intention was to whisper in her ear.

"I suspect that he is here, you know," he breathed, his lips almost touching her earlobe. "Peter Pettigrew, I mean. Do you know who I am talking about?"

Mutely, Aisha shook her head.

"He is a traitor and a spy," Lupin whispered. "He is responsible for the death of James and Lily, and it is his fault that Sirius was in prison. I want to catch him and make sure that at last he is punished for his deeds."

Aisha didn't know who James and Lily were, but she did know that Sirius had spent a frightening amount of time in a truly horrible wizard prison; Varlerta had told her about it. If this Pedigree guy was to blame for that, she was all for catching him. Lupin had been Sirius' friend for all his life; no wonder he seemed to be taking things so personally. However, she objected:

"But it was dangerous to come here! If they catch you, they will kill you, Varlerta says. Are you sure hunting down that traitor is worth it?"

Lupin moved away from her ear and put a finger to his lips. "Quiet – he may very well be close by."

Aisha looked around. She did not see anybody close by. Moreover, she realised that again, Lupin had approached her in a spot that could not be overlooked from the castle's windows, as a couple of trees were in the way.

"You wouldn't see him," Lupin whispered in her ear again. "He may have an Invisibility Cloak, and besides, he can turn himself into a rat. He is very cunning and dangerous, and I fear that he has the Enemy's full support. Catching him would be worth every kind of danger I can fathom."

Aisha nodded. She strained to reach up to his ear. Noticing her effort, Lupin bent down a little so she could whisper into it. "Come up to the castle with me," she pleaded. "The investigators are gone. I'm sure it's safer than running around here at night." 

Lupin suddenly shuddered. "The moon will rise soon, Aisha," he whispered. "Let me escort you back to the castle to make sure you are safe." With these words, he took a shimmering bundle of textile from his cloak's pocket. Shaking it out, Aisha saw it was a Cloak which looked as magical as anything she had ever seen. Lupin threw the material over both of them and pulled her close once more so that both were covered.

"This will make us invisible. I don't want to be seen yet – I'll come with you in a couple of days. Just keep my secret for now."

And with these words, he led her up to the castle's door, where he released her from the Cloak. Turning around, she realised that indeed she could not see him. 

"Hurry in," he urged softly.

Shaking off her discomfort, Aisha whistled for the house-elf and was admitted to the castle. She thanked the eerie little creature and walked up the stairs to her room. Halfway up, she stopped at an arched window to watch the rise of the full moon. Her body still tingled, remembering the warmth of his body as she had felt it in the confinement of the Cloak. When she realised she had not even asked him why Sirius had not returned with him to look for the Pedigree guy, she chided herself for being selfish.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aisha wasn't much of a Christmas person. All her friends knew that she neither made nor wanted any gifts and kept their bustle of wrapping and unwrapping to themselves. Knowing that Varlerta wouldn't feel much Christmas spirit this year either, Aisha suggested an early morning jam session to her friend. She knew that the witch had to cope with a very quiet place these days, that Sirius (and maybe someone else) had left a void, an emptiness which was almost as palpable as a person. Varlerta, hollow-eyed and pale, still in her nightgown as Aisha had woken her up, agreed at once. Aisha noticed her touching the pendant that hung around her neck, something the witch often did when she was not feeling well. However, the thing hanging from her neck was not her battered old ocarina, but a flat splinter of wood with a shiny finish and a fraction of a mother-of-pearl and bone inlay – a rose design, Aisha guessed. She did not want to disturb her friend with undue curiosity, but could not help thinking that this change of pendant had more significance than a mere matter of fashion. Therefore, she just sat down behind the drum set and waited for Varlerta to throw on some clothes.

After a therapeutically noisy hour, Pat and Roary showed up at Varlerta's building. Without a word, Pat took his bass guitar from the stand and turned up the amplifier. Roary fiddled with the P.A. and adjusted the microphone. The two of them joined in Aisha's and Varlerta's noisy and somewhat aimless music. After a short break of silence, Varlerta played a new guitar riff which Pat picked up immediately. Roary started to sing something at intervals and jotted down some lyrics on a piece of paper. Then the bass player added a part of his own; Varlerta noticed the change of chords and waited a bit until she had figured out what to play. Soon, they had wordlessly developed a structure of verse and chorus which they played in turns, the length of the parts largely determined by rock conventions. After about half an hour they stopped. The sudden silence fell on them like a shock. Aisha noticed Varlerta smiling. It felt as if a weight had been taken from her shoulders. For the first time since they had come to Britain this winter, she felt that the _Magic Mushrooms_ were a band, not a bunch of people who had almost accidentally ended up in the same castle.

They worked a bit more on the new song, added a bridge and discussed its structure a bit; while composing together without words was a fine thing, verbal communication was usually needed to make things more complex. Then the band played many of their songs, even some of the very old ones; it was well past noon when they stopped. Aisha started feeling quite hungry; Varlerta, who hadn't had any breakfast, announced that she would probably faint if they did not feed her soon. Aisha was glad to hear that, not because she particularly wanted her witch friend to faint, but because she saw that Varlerta had regained her appetite. Up till now, it seemed the witch guitarist had functioned like a robot, teaching her classes, but otherwise sitting around without much purpose in life, eating very little – in other words, she had been moping. Now she looked alive again. Of course, that didn't mean that the witch would immediately stop torturing herself with worries and pointless self-reproaches, but at least she had taken an interest in the vital things of life again, things like food and music.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Christmas dinner was an opulent affair, even though Aisha, who loved her food heavily spiced, did think that many dishes tasted a bit bland. She certainly enjoyed the samosas which had obviously been produced after Pat's famous recipe. Almost as much, she enjoyed the look on the faces of many of the British, who seemed to be used to bland elf cuisine only: They tried the samosas with extreme caution, if they did so at all. Dumbledore however, the ancient Headmaster of the school, praised them loudly; the old wizard was clearly not well, but nevertheless in good spirits. The same was true for the superannuated witch sitting on his left: She ate quite a few samosas, listing all the Indian spices to her equally fossilised husband Nicholas, who refrained from trying them.

Later there was Varlerta's after-dinner-party, attended by almost all the teachers and about two dozen students, among them, of course, the band. While the hostess was clearly not in a party mood, she had provided the space, the drinks, and the music by asking Ginny's band to play, and had done what she could to put on a friendly face. "After last year, everybody asked me if I was having another party, and it's a good opportunity for the band to have their first gig in a relatively small setting, not in front of the whole school," Varlerta told Aisha. "That's why I didn't want to back out, even though I feel much more like crawling into a hole rather than celebrating something."

Aisha nodded sympathetically. She noticed the new pendant again, because Varlerta was twisting it between her fingers. Strange as it looked, it might have been a farewell token from Sirius; then again, when the rest of the _Magic Mushrooms_ had arrived in Britain, Varlerta had still been wearing the little ocarina bulging beneath her robes, if Aisha wasn't mistaken. Curiosity drove away her wish to avoid painful topics; she asked: "What's that you're wearing on that leather cord?"

Varlerta laughed mirthlessly. "Actually it's a token from my youth. When I was a kid, I used to have this humongous Renaissance lute – an ancient family heirloom, actually. It was a beautiful instrument and full of magic." Her fingers traced the mother-of-pearl inlay. "Then some jerk of a relative broke the lute while taking me out of this school – broke it on purpose, too. I was completely heartbroken." Her eyes stared into the distance; just when Aisha thought she would never hear the rest of the story, Varlerta resumed with a slightly choked voice: "Someone saved this splinter for all these years and gave it to me quite recently. I have no idea why he did so, but I just kind of liked to see a fraction of my beloved instrument again, so…." She was twisting the splinter between her fingers again.

"That someone was Snape – your old friend from school." Aisha was taking an educated guess.

"I suppose I should help the kids with the P.A.," Varlerta said and got up, avoiding Aisha's eyes.

While Varlerta was talking to Neville and Ginny, Aisha sauntered over to Roary. He was sharing one of Varlerta's squashy sofas with Dumbledore, talking politics again:

"I agree with you – regarding all the 'accidents' that have recently happened at your school, I am surprised that there are so few that call for it to be closed down," he said. "Malfoy in particular – I would have expected to include this demand in his Ministerial campaign. As he is totally avoiding any reference to Hogwarts in his public speeches, I should suppose he is planning something – maybe something more destructive than just demanding the school to be closed."

Dumbledore gravely shook his head. "We cannot know what he is planning, but I fear it is something evil. It may be possible that becoming Minister of Magic is only a first step in Malfoy's attempted ascent to power."

"We have to find someone else to run against him, someone more – suitable," sighed a tall wizard Aisha did not know, but whose face and remaining red hair somehow reminded her of Ginny and her brothers. "I wish you could run for the office, Albus."

"I can't, and you know it, Arthur," Dumbledore replied. "If it becomes known that I am no longer at this school, I fear that Voldemort will attack immediately. The rest of the teachers might prove victorious in a battle, but with Snape gone, I fear for the worst if it should come to that." His careworn face lit up in a smile; he patted the red-haired wizard's hand. "Don't worry about being unsuitable, Arthur – you will do quite nicely."

The wizard addressed as Arthur started to reply something, but when he spotted Aisha, he checked himself and beamed at her. "A Muggle, a Muggle at Hogwarts. You must be one of the friends who came with Professor Varlerta and Professor Lyons. Welcome to the heart of the realm of magic."

Aisha felt herself blush. She wasn't used to being welcomed so warmly, much less used to being stared at. Most people just overlooked her.

"Thank you," she replied. "Pleased to meet you. My name is Aisha Riq."

"Weasley, Arthur Weasley."

"So – you are running for the office of the Minister of Magic?" she asked casually.

Arthur's eyes rounded, while Dumbledore and Roary looked at each other and chuckled.

"My Muggles have good ears, Arthur," Roary replied. "So much for keeping our plans secret." 

"Well, they are not exactly secret, or they won't be for much longer," Dumbledore objected. "We will start campaigning for you in January, after all."

Arthur Weasley looked slightly uncomfortable. Aisha would have liked to hear him talk himself out of it, but was called away from the conversation by Ginny.

"Varlerta said we could start playing whenever we wanted. We've got the P.A. set up, and the amplifiers, and the drum set." And the keyboard, Aisha added in her thoughts as she saw Kay pressing a couple of keys on the muted instrument.

Rhonda and Neville came to join them. "I'm so upset, I think I'm going to be sick," the bass player said with a dramatic quiver in her voice. "I can't believe I agreed to this gig. This will be so embarrassing. I'm such rubbish at my instrument."

Inwardly, Aisha rolled her eyes towards the ceiling, while Neville patted the stage-frightened girl's arm. Teenagers! Conveniently forgetting that she had not been much different at fifteen, she briskly told Rhonda that everything would be fine and offered her help with her amplifier. Meanwhile, Ginny went over to talk to Julian; the pair of them definitely looked the part of the cool musicians, something into which they probably put a good deal of effort.

"Joolz and Gin are so cool, so calm," Rhonda sighed. "They look like they have a gig every day."

Joolz and Gin – that sounded sophisticated, that sounded well matched. _Jules and Jim_, Aisha thought, but didn't voice her association aloud, almost sure that the witch girl would not get the joke.

Finally, the young and so far nameless band decided they were ready to play. They opened with _The Day I Tried to Live by__ Soundgarden – a good opener, but slightly ill-chosen because the band was struggling audibly with the rhythm. Aisha had been able to help Ginny a good deal with the change between 4/4 and 3/4 time, but Rhonda, a relative novice on the bass, kept stumbling over the notes of her part. Aisha thought that perhaps the girl would have been slightly less upset before the gig had the band decided to open with another song. Neville did not manage to be entirely convincing with his roars and screams either; somehow it sounded like it was costing him a tremendous effort to sound angry. However, just like most well-meaning audiences, the students and teachers attending the party clapped loudly nevertheless, giving the band a special encouragement after the half-ruined song._

Things improved greatly in the second song, _The Weird Sisters' She's like a Demiguise_: In spite of their limited skills, the band managed to convey just the right kind of gentle ballad feeling; Neville sighed and moaned the notes just like on the recording Varlerta had loaned Aisha. For the first time, Aisha wondered about Ginny and Neville. As Varlerta's apprentices, they were surely friends, but she had never given it much thought. While Ginny was turning into a young woman, Neville still seemed very much a boy, slightly ill-shaped during the process of growing out of his puppy fat, his movements awkward. However, now that she heard him sing a love song, convey it to an audience with  his voice, his body and his heart, Aisha wondered whether maybe she had underestimated Neville. While he sang, she saw a young wizard full of promises of interesting things to come. 

Of course, there was Joolz Hengert to consider, too, Aisha thought as the band was playing the song written by him, _Scaffold_. If Neville with his tuneful little flute solo was a promise of an eligible male, Joolz was its fulfilment already. From the distance provided by the age gap, Aisha could objectively classify the boy as attractive. For the party, he had shed his school uniform: Now his dreadlocks were supplemented by a multitude of silver earrings, dragon-hide boots, leather pants and a tight black t-shirt clinging to a well shaped body. While he was skilfully strumming his guitar, Aisha decided that when she had been a teenager, she would have fallen for Joolz without a shadow of a doubt. Probably many girls felt the same: There were three female students in the audience who were definitely ogling him, and Rhonda seemed to look over at Joolz whenever she could afford to take her eyes from her strings. Ginny seemed busy with her drum set, but had mentioned the guitar player quite frequently in the last few days. Aisha knew that Ginny admired Joolz a good deal for having written the up-tempo rock song _Scaffold. "How do drummers write their songs?" the girl had asked her a couple of days earlier. Aisha had shrugged, at a loss for a reply. She did not write any songs herself, only contributed to the others' ideas; all the drummers she knew only wrote their own songs if they played another instrument, for example the guitar. Ginny had been disappointed in the answer; Aisha wished she could teach the girl how to write songs. She'd talk to Varlerta about it, she decided; Varlerta had written plenty of songs, and teaching Ginny would do her good._

The last song, _Radiohead's Creep, was clearly the band's best number. Rhonda had only recently learned to play the bass part in time tolerably well, Aisha knew, but now it sounded just right. Its first notes were greeted with cheers by the audience who recognised the song immediately; even Varlerta was smiling. Ginny had told Aisha that the whole school had been whistling the song for a while, 'magically' connected by the same tune that would not leave the students' collective head. The keyboard chords Kay had added demanded an extra eight bars of intro, but this alteration did not sound out of place anymore to Aisha: Somehow it seemed like the chords had always been there, just like the silver-blonde keyboard player. For Neville, it was most certainly the most credible part; when he sang that he was a creep feeling out of place, he was so convincing that Aisha had to suppress the urge of giving him a comforting cuddle. _

Suddenly, she felt excessively lonely herself. In spite of the crowded room, in spite of the presence of her band mates and a couple of kids she cared about, it seemed as if she didn't have a friend in the world. Impatient with her own self-pity, she silently listed her friends to herself, insisting that they cared about her. _Yes, a voice in her head seemed to say, __but Roary and Pat have each other, and Varlerta would have Sirius, or maybe that other guy, if they hadn't been forced to run for it, and that's where her thoughts are. The kids are all very well, but they have their own lives to attend to, and need to get more than they can give. Who cares about me? that voice said;__ who cares about me like I care about them? And all of a sudden, while the audience around her was bursting into applause, asking the band for an encore, she saw the image of a wolf in her head, a wolf running through the snowy night all by himself. _

A lonely wolf. Yeah, right. _Stop that, stupid, she told herself, mentally slapping her own hand._


	19. Hermione

19 – Hermione 

"Very well done, Miss Granger – looks like you're heading for full marks again." After surveying her cauldron very briefly, Professor Lyons moved on to Harry and Ron. "Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley –go easy on the Phoenix urine now. A dash too much, and your potion is likely to be ruined." Patiently, he stood by them and showed them how the measurement cups were used correctly, an instruction Hermione remembered having received from Snape during her first year at Hogwarts.

Hermione glanced over at her two friends. Dumbledore had decreed that Ron was to go to all of his classes again so that he would – hopefully – pass the year; if he missed any more classes, he would have to repeat it. Being up and about seemed to do Ron marginally well, but apathy remained his prevailing characteristic. Therefore, to be able to keep up, Ron was paired off with Harry in every single class: For one thing, he had missed many things in the two months he had basically spent in bed; for another, he was still wandless. Of course, there did not seem to be much point sending him to Potions class, as he had dropped out of it at the beginning of the school year. However, Harry appeared to be the only one who could induce Ron to any participation whatsoever that went beyond physical presence, which was the reason for Ron's switch from Divination to Potions class. 

Had their teacher still been the choleric and vicious-minded Professor Snape, Hermione thought idly while giving her potion another stir, this might not have been a wise move. Due to his accident, Ron had not only become utterly passive, but also seemed fragile somehow; loud noises were known to scare him. Roary, since recently _Professor _Lyons_, was far kinder and had infinitely more patience with his students than Snape. He also knew considerably less about potions than Snape, Hermione could not help noticing: He knew enough to teach his students, but did not have the deep knowledge of someone who had dedicated his life to his subject. She was glad the American singer had come to teach them, because this seemed to be the only way that Ron could at least partially keep up with the class; Harry, too, seemed to profit from the new teacher's slower pace. She, however, felt a bit deprived. It wasn't that she _liked_ Snape; considering the obvious flaws in his character, she often found it difficult to even respect him. However, his classes had often succeeded in challenging her mind, in satisfying her thirst for knowledge; in Professor Lyons'class, all she had to do was follow some relatively simple and clear instructions._

"Ron, you were going to grind the bitter almonds," Harry reminded his friend. Ron obeyed, slowly turning the pestle in the mortar. Hermione sighed. They were two students doing the work of one, but at this pace they would not even finish in time. She felt like giving Ron a little shake so he would start working properly again, or if not work, at least show some spirit by doing mischief. How much different was he from the boy he used to be! _I can't wait for the panacea to be done, _she thought, willing herself to be patient.

Progress on the metaphysical substance was slow. She knew, because she was participating in the process of its making. She had asked Perenelle and Nicholas if she could be their assistant, and they had accepted her. Professor McGonagall and Dumbledore had given their permission, too, reminding Hermione that she was already doing extra work for her History of Magic project, but giving in to her pleas. Now she had a chance of assisting the ancient couple. However, it wasn't quite as she had hoped it would be: They taught her many new things, but not as much as she thought adequate; they were actively keeping information from her, claiming they were not permitted to disclose certain things. Whenever they dealt with certain matters, especially if these matters involved the help of Unspeakables like Ambrose Curtis or even Molly Weasley, they would send her out of the room. It was frustrating! 

Hermione poured her potion into a jug to be marked, thinking sourly that in _proper_ Potions class, she would not have been able to think of other things all the time. She handed in her jug, cleared away her equipment, offered Ron and Harry her help, and when they declined, started on the shortish essay Professor Lyonshad given them for homework. Over the years, she had learned to write systematically and neatly even when not seated properly at a table in the library; the eight minutes which were left of the lesson could be put to their full use: While the other students finished, handed in and tidied up, she got most of her homework done. When the class was leaving the dungeon, she had her bag strapped over her shoulder and her piece of parchment in one hand, shaking it so the ink would dry. The feeling of being effective, of making the most of her time, and of achieving something, contributed to bettering her mood. Snape, of course, would not have let her do her essay in class, but then again, Snape's classes had been too demanding to leave her much time for that. As it was, however, she was gaining the time she needed for her other projects.

After lunch, she could not wait to get into the room in which Perenelle and Nicholas were working on the panacea – as it happened, the former Spellsearchers' Lab Sirius and Lupin had used. The ancient couple was taking a tea break; Perenelle was munching at some biscuits, while Nicholas, as usual, was humming an aria to himself. Hermione had to keep herself from reprimanding them. They'd just had their lunch, and March 21st was approaching fast. Why did they need another break?

Hermione murmured a greeting. Perenelle and Nicholas hardly looked up at her. Their silence told her that they had been wrapped up in a conversation they didn't want her to follow, most likely about the matters of Unspeakables. Unwilling to let them know how much this annoyed her, Hermione went over to the laboratory part of the room to see if there had been any progress since yesterday. Unlike the Spellsearchers, the alchemists required a _real_ laboratory, one with test-tubes, Petri dishes and Erlenmeyer retorts. A part of their craft resembled the art of potion making, even though they worked with solid rather than with liquid matter: While potion making involved boiling, simmering, brewing, distilling, melting or at least mashing things into pulp, alchemy often required a combination of substances in which they were not liquefied. Of course, the amalgamation of solid materials was far more difficult than just stirring liquids into each other; it involved complicated spells, some of which Nicholas had already taught Hermione. 

This was where alchemy not only differed from potion making, but, more importantly, from Muggle chemistry: In the hand of Muggles, substances were bound to their natural properties; there were strict limits to how something could be transformed by chemistry. Alchemy meant the craft of breaking these natural laws, of making substances behave in a way that was not natural for them. For example, turning lead into gold could hardly be achieved by Muggle physics; "you can shoot your protons around, but if you want to have the gold for a purpose, that's just not an efficient method," Perenelle had told the amazed Hermione. Alchemy, on the other hand, meant altering not the physical, but the _meta_physical properties of matter, thereby achieving the unachievable. 

This was the other part of alchemy – the part you could not see, or hear, or taste, the part you could not physically touch. Hermione found it hard to comprehend, not the least because Nicholas and Perenelle avoided explaining many things to her. They said she was too young to know about it, that it was against the law to tell her. Hermione resented such replies. Of course, measured against them, she was extremely young, but then again, everybody was, as the pair had persisted through the centuries. "Older than the trees, younger than the mountains," Perenelle liked to say with a wink, her eyelids folding like a concertina. Hermione found the remark slightly tasteless. These two had tricked death; again and again, they had escaped the scythe, outliving their friends, their children and grandchildren, maybe even outstaying their welcome in many places. Well, their stay was drawing to a close now. The last drops of the Elixir of Life were dwindling; Perenelle had confided that to her. On March 21st, they would die. By that day, the panacea had to be completed, or there would be no panacea; whatever knowledge they had not entrusted to Hermione by that time would die with them. For this reason, Hermione hated with a vengeance any kind of delay, any hesitation, any tea break. There was no time to lose.

"You know, we wanted to die a number of times, but somehow we never got around to it," Perenelle had once told Hermione in good humour. "There's always the next holiday to celebrate, or the next job to do, or the next descendent of us expecting a baby which we still wanted to see. We just never found any _time_ to die, really. When Dumbledore asked us to destroy the stone a few years ago, we agreed, but of course, we still had a supply of the Elixir stashed away to put our affairs in order. We knew we had quite a bit, to be honest, and said we'd destroy what we didn't need, so young Voldemort wouldn't get his filthy hands on it, but to be honest, we never destroyed one single bottle. We decided we'd set a date for death, and destroy all the elixir that would keep us alive beyond that, but then we kept putting that date off, because things kept coming up. But now, this is definitely it. On March 21st, we will run out of Elixir, and finally snuff it. The stone's gone, too, so there is no way out at last. Everyone's got to die some day."

That was true, Hermione thought as she was checking on dish holding a large diamond and a pile of pressed ginkgo leaves. She just wished that the two of them would not die until they had cured Ron and the other 'afflicted', and until they had taught her enough so she could become an alchemist herself. Alchemy was the most fascinating craft she had ever heard about, and the more she learned the more her hunger for knowledge grew.

Perenelle touched her shoulder. Hermione started, because she had not heard the ancient witch step up behind her.

"There's progress – the ginkgo leaves and the diamond are starting to grow together – they are growing alike," she said. 

Hermione nodded. She had noticed that the leaves had hardened considerably, while the diamond was growing dull and greenish. She wasn't sure if she was imagining things, but there seemed to be leaf veins growing through the perennial gemstone. 

"These processes usually take a long time," Perenelle told her. "We can't wait that long. After some recent successes, we asked Professor Varlerta and her two apprentices to play their magical music to our materials. It seems to work like a catalyst which speeds up and enhances the process. If things keep up like this, we can go over to the next step in a couple of days."

"In which I, unfortunately, cannot take part, as it is against the law that I learn anything important," Hermione replied, surprised at the bitterness in her own voice. 

Perenelle sighed. "Hermione, we discussed this before. There are limits to what we can teach you. I am sorry about it, but I can't change it. I am not withholding information from you for fun. These are things about which most people, even most grown witches and wizards, know nothing whatsoever. So it has been decreed centuries ago, and so we will keep it. If you choose a profession in which you need to deal with these things, you will be initiated once you are considered old enough. You have to be patient."

"By the time I'm old enough, you two will be dead," Hermione said softly, but clearly. She saw Perenelle's eyes widen, but decided not to apologise. The ancient witch talked openly about her impending death; why should Hermione not be permitted to be just as frank? There was no time for polite avoidance; this might be the only chance she'd ever get to speak her mind. She resumed:

"If the library books are not mistaken, you two are the last alchemists left on this planet, except for Dumbledore, who seems to have been your last apprentice. It is a science that has become almost extinct. A community of wizards hunted alchemists in fifteenth century because they were becoming too powerful. You two have survived all the raids, but you seem to be an exception to every rule. However, no one ever really followed in your footsteps. When I asked if I could study with you, I also asked Dumbledore if he would be able to complete the panacea if you didn't make it in time. He said he didn't have the necessary skills. When you die, your knowledge will die with you. I can't wait until I'm old enough to be taught what I have to learn, because by that time, there will be no one left to teach me. This is my only chance. And –" she played her only trump card, "I am _your last chance to teach your knowledge to someone if you do not want it to get lost."_

Perenelle looked quite pleased with Hermione's outbreak. "Connecting bits of knowledge, I see. You seem to have gotten some work done in your little History of Magic project. Did you read the bit about Dorothea Julia Wallich?"

Hermione was amazed. She had expected Perenelle to be at least a little indignant. "Never mind my project," she replied. "It's nothing important, just a meaningless little NEWTs credit. Alchemy is what really matters to me: I want to study it not to get good marks, but for myself. Most of all, I want my friends saved, so I want the panacea to be finished in time. If it is not, and you are not –here anymore, who will help me complete it? I have to learn all I can from you, otherwise all our efforts may be lost – and so will my friends. Will you teach me?"

Perenelle laughed. "You do not aim for trifles, do you?" 

Hermione took a deep breath. "I love to learn. I want to learn as much as I can. In a way, I am doing this for my own pleasure. But it's not only that. There are people in danger – people who very well may die soon, or never be the same again, or become a danger to their friends if we do not find a way to help them. With a little luck, we may be in time with the panacea. If so, what about the next people Voldemort hits with his Ice Missiles? What about the next curse he will invent faster than we can find a counter-curse? As soon as we knew a way to counter Icy Fingers, he came up with something new. That's how it's going to be in the future; we will always be one step behind him, not one step ahead. People will be harmed all the time. We will need this panacea, will need it not only once, but repeatedly. Who is going to produce it once you are dead if you won't teach me?"

"'tis a wise wee lass we have found ourselves, Perenellia" Nicholas Flamel said slowly and gently.

Perenelle looked over to her husband and then back at Hermione. "Sit down and close your eyes," she told her assistant.

Her heart beating ferociously, Hermione did as instructed. 

"Breathe in and out slowly, and calm yourself," Perenelle's voice came from behind. "This will take a while, and nothing exciting will happen; it is only a little test. No reason to get all upset about it."

Hermione thought to herself that the words 'a little test' were not the perfect choice to relieve her of her anxiety, but forced herself to breathe evenly. Whatever would come _(breathe in slowly, hold it briefly)_ would come _(breathe out slowly)_. Whatever would come _(breathe in slowly, hold it)_ would come _(breathe out very slowly)_.

Finally she felt Perenelle's hands on her shoulders. She could sense their warmth through her robes. 

"I will let the stream of magic flow through your body," Perenelle said with a very calm voice that made Hermione slightly drowsy. Hermione waited for something to happen. For what seemed an eternity, she waited in vain. All she felt were Perenelle's warm hands lying on her shoulder. Sitting still and remaining calm became increasingly difficult. She wanted to move, to scratch her elbow, to enquire indignantly what this nonsense was supposed to be, but she upheld her self-discipline. Finally, she felt Perenelle's hands grow positively hot on her back; she felt the presence of a great power. This power swelled and grew until it seemed to overwhelm her; Hermione gasped in something that was very much like fear.

Perenelle removed her hands. "Open your eyes and tell me what you felt, girl." 

Hermione turned to face her. For a moment she felt tempted to claim that she had perceived all kinds of things, most of all a truly impressive stream of magic, but she knew she would not be able to fool Perenelle for very long. As much as she hated to, she had to admit: "Apart from the presence of very strong magic, I didn't feel much."

Perenelle pulled up a chair and placed it so she was facing Hermione. Her kind face made it unequivocally clear that she would say things Hermione would not like to hear.

"See, Hermione, alchemy is for its largest part a metaphysical craft because it deals with things which cannot be perceived with our normal senses. Therefore, most people cannot deal with this power – they can't control it because they don't even know to what extent it is there. Some people, however, can feel this power. This is what 'having the Sixth Sense' really means – the ability to perceive, and maybe control, the stream of magic. It is a rare gift, you must understand. I am sorry to tell you that you do not possess it."

Hermione felt frustration well up in her. It was just like in her third year when she had been told by Professor Trelawney that she did not possess the Second Sight. Like then, she felt tempted to dismiss the diagnosis she was told: Maybe she did not feel anything because there _was_ nothing to be felt. Maybe they were making things up just to make her feel bad. In Trelawney's case, nothing had ever properly proved this assumption wrong: Harry and Ron had been making their predictions up until the day they had dropped the class; it was all a bunch of nonsense and nothing else. However, the ancient witch in front of her was not Professor Trelawney. She had lived for far more than six hundred years, which was at least some kind of proof that her profession was no fraud, but _real_. Slowly Hermione nodded. "Then there is no hope; it is a skill that can't be acquired by learning, I suppose," she replied dully.

"You are right, and you are wrong," Perenelle replied enigmatically. Upon seeing Hermione's frown of confusion, she put matters more precisely: "As far as I know, the skill I am talking about cannot be acquired by studying or training. Mind you, those who possess it have to practise it, to refine their skills and to learn to control their powers, but to those who do not possess it, training is useless. If my six hundred years of experience are not proved wrong, you will never develop a Sixth Sense, will never perceive or control the stream of magic, and you will therefore never be an Unspeakable."

Comprehension dawned on Hermione. "That's what they do."

Perenelle sighed. "I should not have told you, but I believe you to be a sensible young woman who won't go blabbing about things which are not meant for the ears of the uninitiated. There is much more to the work of the Unspeakables than you can guess now, but, yes, it has to do with the stream, or rather the source of magic."

Hermione let her head hang in disappointment. Perenelle was talking about such exciting things, things that would forever be closed to her.

"I see," she said in a small voice.

"Alchemy is powered by the force felt by those who possess the Sixth Sense," Perenelle said, worsening Hermione's sadness. "Without the skills of an Unspeakable, there is no alchemy. I myself possess the Sixth Sense, and therefore enabled Nicholas to achieve his great works of alchemy. He, however, does not possess the Sixth Sense."

Hermione stared first at the ancient witch, then at the wizened wizard. "You do not possess it, Loremaster Flamel? How can you be an alchemist, then?"

"Aye, lass, 'tis a skill I do not call my own. Only with the aid of my dearest wife could I work the Philosopher's Stone," Flamel said, his eyes twinkling. "Therefore, take hope, pray thee, my lass."

In spite of herself, Hermione had to grin from one ear to the other. "You worked together?" she asked. "All you had to do is combine your skills to do alchemy? Do you mean that if I find an Unspeakable for a partner, there is hope that I can do alchemy, too?" Then her sudden joy was darkened by confusion.

"Wait – in all the books I read about you, it only said that Loremaster Flamel was the greatest alchemist ever known in history, but no one ever mentioned you as a participator, Perenelle. If the Stone was made by the two of you, why didn't the books mention that?"

Nicholas did not meet Hermione's eye, but Perenelle laughed. "Back when we first started working together, the social climate was very anti-woman, even anti-witch. The wizard was supposed to be the head of the family, the achieving party, while witches were basically limited to magical housecleaning. Of course, in reality this was not how things were done. There was no branch of magic without its share of excelling witches; however, this was taken for granted, not discussed in public. When Nick and I started doing alchemy together, I didn't mind it much that no one mentioned my contributions to our achievements. That's how things were done simply everywhere, and besides, I was far too eager to become immortal to worry about such short-lived things as fame. Then, a couple of centuries later, about the time of the first Muggle suffrage movements, I began to see things differently: I wanted to be noticed, to be recognised. It was a mixture of personal pride and a hope to show witches and women what we all can achieve if we make the effort. However, the important books about the age of alchemy were already written, and it looked like I just wanted to make a nuisance of myself. I didn't like that, so I ended up accepting things as they were. But you can truly believe me: Nicholas does not have the Sixth Sense; he could only be an alchemist with my help."

"Aye, 'tis true," Nicholas Flamel agreed with a strange little smile. For a moment she wondered what he thought about getting all the fame for the couple's achievement, but there were more important things on her mind.

"So all I need is a proper partner for my work," she said.

Perenelle nodded. "For the time being, I suggest you partner up with Ambrose Curtis. He is a skilled Unspeakable, he's been working with us on the panacea already, and he's on the premises. Moreover, I've seen you two talking, so I suppose you are getting along well."

Hermione nodded and successfully avoided blushing. She didn't mind working with her fellow League member Ambrose at all, but of course, people were not supposed to know she was a League member.

"I do believe that you will be working with another partner some time in the future, but you will have to see about that yourself," Perenelle added a little pertly.

"So you are a Seer, too?" Hermione added suspiciously. She didn't like Seers. "Does it come with the Sixth Sense?"

Perenelle shook her head. "The Sixth Sense and the Second Sight have nothing to do with each other. You don't have to be a Seer to predict certain things."

Confused, Hermione shook her head. "I'll talk to Curtis when I see him to- – when I see him," she caught herself just in time. Not even Perenelle was supposed to know that she attended League meetings on certain evenings.

"Aye, my lass," Nicholas Flamel replied. "Anon, betake thee yonder to the glass dishes, so I may teach ye some more of the worldly matters which constitute the grand art of alchemy." 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Over the years, Hermione had developed the skill of doing her homework in a minimum of time without cutting down on neatness and correctness. Years of schooling had taught her that efficiency was achieved through working systematically with a maximum of concentration. The other students in her year, especially Harry, always marvelled at the amount of things Hermione got done in the course of a day. Of course, they had never learned to cope with a time-turner. However, what they lacked most, in Hermione's view, was motivation. After classes had finished, they often stared at their pile of homework as if an unachievable task had been set before them. By the time they had finished staring, it seemed, Hermione had finished half of her work. She worked quickly because there were other things than just homework she wanted to do with her life. There was the League, for example, there was alchemy, and presently there was her History of Magic project.

After their OWLs, students were permitted, sometimes required, to drop certain classes. History of Magic was a class most students dropped. In Hermione's year, she was the only one who had actually wanted to keep the subject. Fortunately, nobody expected her to spend her lessons alone with Professor Binns. Instead of requiring her to attend a class, the ghost had asked her to choose a topic for a little research project, and write a longer essay about a subject. Deciding that for a NEWTs credit, it was a relatively easy task, infinitely preferable to sitting in Binns' class for two more years, Hermione had agreed to do a research project on her own. Perenelle had given her the idea; Professor Binns and Professor McGonagall had strongly encouraged her. She was carrying out research on the history of the four House Ghosts of Hogwarts.

The information _Hogwarts – A Historyheld about Nearly Headless Nick, the Bloody Baron, the Grey Lady and the Fat Friar was minimal. This was especially amazing as Professor Binns had told her that the history of all four House Ghosts was closely intertwined with the history of the school. Sometimes she wondered how the History of Magic teacher himself liked her topic, as he was a ghost himself. However, she could not ask him: The rule of her assignment stated that she had to write the essay on her own, without help and without advice. The ghosts themselves, of course, had received strict orders to remain silent. Therefore, there was only one way to approach her task, and it was an approach which had the appeal of familiarity to Hermione: When in doubt, go to the library. _

The Grey Lady was the easiest of the four. Dorothea Julia Wallich had taught at Hogwarts from 1705 to 1719 – she had been the last person ever to teach alchemy at the school, and she had been a direct descendent of Nicholas and Perenelle. Dorothea had worked a panacea twice – from books about alchemy, Hermione learnt that this was supposed to be the greatest achievement for a master (or mistress?) of alchemy, save one: It was only surpassed by the creation of a Philosopher's Stone, something which few but Nicholas and Perenelle had ever achieved, but which Dorothea appeared to have tried repeatedly.

In the library, Hermione had found an ancient, crumbling edition of _Hogwarts – A History_ dating seventy years back. It amazed her to find that the newer edition she practically possessed did not only contain facts about everything that had happened in the meantime, but that there was a considerable amount of facts missing in 'her' edition. (Legally speaking, the book belonged to the library, too, but Madam Pince had once told Hermione to keep it as long as she pleased – the librarian would let her know if anybody else ever asked for the book.) Now Hermione found that the older edition contained a lot of information that did not seem to have been left out just to make room for new facts; she had the impression somebody had tried to edit out certain events or even people. One of the people she did not find mentioned anywhere else was a certain Fred Friars, who had been Headmaster of Hogwarts from 1922 to 1926. There was no portrait of that Headmaster anywhere in the castle, not even in Dumbledore's office; when asking the current Headmaster whether she could be the apprentice of Perenelle and Nicholas, Hermione had checked. However, a small vignette printed into the book displayed a merry, fat wizard who looked suspiciously like the Hufflepuff ghost. Hermione could not help wondering what Fred Friars had done to forfeit his right to be mentioned in _Hogwarts – A History and the right to have his portrait on the wall of Dumbledore's office._

Nearly Headless Nick had seemed an easy task at first, because since his five-hundredth deathday, Hermione knew his full name: Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington. She also knew that he had died October 31st, 1492. However, his name appeared in none of the books she had found so far, even though she searched for him tirelessly. She even had a permission slip to order any book from the Restricted Section if she knew its exact title. However, after hours with the crumbling old library register – it seemed almost all the books in stock were listed in this eighty-year-old tome – she felt ready to give up. What good was a name if it was all you knew? Somehow she was reminded of the search Harry, Ron and she had carried out in their first year, desperately looking for Nicholas Flamel in all the books they could lay their hands on. Again, she didn't know what she was searching for, but was sure there was something out there waiting for her to find it. Or was there? Sometimes Hermione wondered if maybe the reason Nick and the Fat Friar  were mentioned nowhere was that they had done nothing noteworthy at all, and were therefore never mentioned in any book. But if that was the case, why had Perenelle advised her to take up this particular project – and why had Professor Binns agreed? They'd know if the Hogwarts ghosts were too boring for any well-founded project, wouldn't they? And if the House Ghosts were boring, why had they become ghosts?

The last of the four certainly had not been a boring character. Hermione had found the Bloody Baron almost by accident, had found him in the first book she had opened. There was no question that it was him: Not only had the portrait Marvolo Slytherin in _The Chronicles of Slytherin an extraordinary likeness to the gaunt Slytherin ghost; his short biography even mentioned that Marvolo had gone on to haunt the House of Slytherin. Hermione had copied it word for word with one of the handy Kwik-Copy quills the Sixth Year students were finally permitted to use. It read as follows:_

_Marvolo Slytherin (1860-1926) was the last direct male descendent of Salazar Slytherin the Great. He acquired an international reputation in necromancy. However, his life is generally seen as the last step in the downfall of the great and noble Slytherin family. A victim of the 'Slytherin Curse' said to be brought about by his grandfather Nero Slytherin, he bravely fought against his fate all his life. However, all his attempts to produce a male heir and to let the line of Slytherin continue beyond his death came to naught: His first two wives, née Elvira Lestrange, and née Margaret Malfoy, produced no children whatsoever; his third wife, née Gwenda Ailis, only bore him two daughters: Emily (1906) and Eileen (1911). _

The next passage had been blackened out with imperishable ink; it seemed someone had wanted to prevent the fates of Emily and Eileen to become known. It also left Hermione to wonder about the succession of Marvolo's wives. What had happened to the first two – had Marvolo divorced them, had they left, had they – died? About this, the book said nothing, but it extended the question to the third wife, mother of Emily and Eileen, on whose fate the rest of the biographical article did not elaborate.

_After this utter disappointment, Marvolo Slytherin undertook one more attempt to have an heir. He married Alfreda Davis in 1922, hoping that her youth would facilitate the conception of a healthy wizard boy. _

Another lengthy passage was blackened out. This time, it left Hermione to wonder how old youthful Alfreda Davis had been when married to a wizard who by that time had been sixty-six. She shuddered inwardly. If the passages which were not blackened caused such utter dislike for the person described to her, how would she feel if she was to read what had been made illegible? – The article closed with one more legible sentence:

_After his death, Marvolo Slytherin replaced his uncle, Nero Slytherin, as the ghost of the House of Slytherin at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, truly becoming the new 'Bloody Baron.'_

Of course, the article had furthered Hermione's curiosity of the Bloody Baron's predecessor, Nero Slytherin, who was thought to have brought the 'Slytherin Curse' on his family. She found his biography just a few pages before Marvolo. It was considerably longer than Marvolo's, and, of course, partially blackened out. However, from the legible passages Hermione could gather that Nero Slytherin (1782 – 1863) had been an extremely rich noblewizard and landowner who had continuously enlarged his fortune by exploiting 'his' Muggles in any way conceivable. 

Hermione was burning to find out what the 'Slytherin Curse' was all about, and what had caused Nero Slytherin to be cursed. It seemed to have to do with having children, but she wasn't quite sure about all of it yet. However, a later passage of Nero Slytherin's biography did not only enlighten her on this point, but also succeeded in enraging her considerably: 

_Legend tells us that Nero Slytherin has brought upon the family what was later considered the 'Slytherin Curse', namely the curse which decreed the Slytherin family should bring forward no more sons unless they were bringers of great destruction. The absence of a proper Slytherin heir and the failure of the great line has been attributed, rightly or wrongly, to the curse which Nero received from a village witch called Gill Eston._

When coming into his inheritance, the noblewizard and land-owner decreed that all his lands should be purged of Muggle-born children, a custom which was intended as a means to extinguish the folk magic culture, but which had been abandoned about a century earlier. When his Muggle tenants refused to have their children tested for signs of magic, Nero Slytherin decreed that the first son of each Muggle family should be killed if the Muggles did not give up their witch and wizard children to their landlord. With this rather drastic step, he was hoping to break Muggle solidarity, expecting that when their own children were threatened, Muggles would betray the witch and wizard children of their neighbours. As his threat did not result in the desired outcome, he partially carried it out.

_His enraged tenants asked for help one Gill Eston, who practised folk magic in a neighbouring village. Eston publicly cursed the Slytherin family, predicting the failure of the line because the family would bear no more sons. If they bore any more sons, they would be bringers of great destruction, Eston announced. Slytherin had the witch arrested, punishing her after old wizard laws, but the curse did not die with its pronouncer._

When cursed, Nero already had a son, Kenneth, who later married and became the head of the Slytherin family as was his birth right. Kenneth's wife, née Pauletta Peasegood, only bore him one child, Marvolo. By many, young Marvolo (1860-1926) was regarded as the sign that the Slytherin curse did not hold, and that the great line would not fail. However, as Marvolo Slytherin never produced a male heir, and as his daughters failed to meet their father's expectation, the Great Line of Slytherin today is no more; the family's lofty halls are empty, falling into ruin, waiting for a true heir of Slytherin to re-claim them.

Confused by the abundance of strange names and dates, Hermione did not fail to perceive the sinister implications of this text. Not the fate of the Slytherin family concerned her; she rather worried about the people suppressed, and, indeed, murdered by them. Reading between the lines, she learned that Nero Slytherin had first wanted to kill all Muggle-born witch and wizard children among his tenants, obviously afraid of something called 'folk magic'. To press these tenants into telling him which children to kill, he had pointlessly murdered the eldest sons of many of his Muggle tenants. Punished for his deed by a curse that Hermione thought far too weak for Nero Slytherin's crimes, the wizard had imprisoned and obviously killed the witch who had spoken the curse. 'Old wizard laws' – these words made Hermione shiver inwardly.

Thinking about the text, she suddenly felt as if she was standing on a thin crust of soil covering a blazing volcano. If she had been a Muggle-born witch a few centuries earlier, she realised, it was unlikely that she would have made it to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Most likely, she would have been murdered by an old wizard family living in a fancy castle, a family eager to keep their powers and privileges to themselves. The thought first made her feel sick, then terribly angry. _This is why I am a League member_, she noiselessly whispered to herself. 

But _The Chronicles of Slytherin also hinted at something else, something she had never heard of. What was 'folk magic'? What was a 'village witch'? Nobody had ever mentioned these expressions to her, but the author of the text used these terms as if they were self-explanatory; maybe they were. If 'folk magic' was something to be suppressed, it could not be the magic practised by the old witch and wizard families of that time; it had to be something else, something hidden and forbidden. She suddenly felt the urge to find out more about this 'folk magic'. For a moment she almost wished she was not studying alchemy so she would have more time to find out something about this apparently hidden chapter of the history of Magic._

Her thoughts were interrupted by Harry noisily entering the Gryffindor common room where Hermione was sitting in a corner, looking over her notes. She looked up to see her friend scanning the room, spotting her and walking towards her. "Where's Ron?" he asked. 

Hermione mutely pointed her quill towards the stairway that led up to the boys' dormitory. It wasn't like she knew Ron would be there; rather, the dormitory was the most obvious place for him to be if he wasn't with Harry. She could not help feeling a bit miffed, although she knew she shouldn't: All Harry could ever do these days was worry about people, and as there was no reason to worry about her, he didn't spend much time with her. He had to take care of Ron, and he was also visiting Cho Chang almost every day. Harry had probably just been to her little room in the tower above Ravenclaw Hall, Hermione concluded, considering that he had actually lost sight of Ron.

It was generally kept a secret that the Ravenclaw Seeker had been magically induced to fall in love with Professor Snape, and that she was pining away in a chamber far away from the bustle of the school. But, of course, everyone knew; that's how things went among students, or maybe among people in general. Students were whispering about how disgusting it was to moon after Snape of all people. Many were feeling sorry for Cho, but Hermione had also heard students say some very nasty things about her, all of them amounting to Cho being a slut. Such remarks angered Hermione considerably. It was obvious that Cho could not be blamed if Snape had given her a love potion, and that nobody would voluntarily fall in love with Professor Snape. Besides, Cho was not there to defend herself, but was sitting in her chamber up in the tower by herself, crying and suffering.

"How is she?" Hermione asked Harry, who had already turned away to go up to the dormitory. Harry turned slowly, seemed to take a moment to decide, then pulled up an armchair next to Hermione's. _It's almost as if he had forgotten that I'm someone he can talk to, not just someone who might point him the way to Ron, _Hermione thought. Then she mentally chided herself for having such thoughts. Ron _was_ ill; so was Cho. It was a good thing that Harry was looking after them. They needed him more than Hermione did, who was so busy with school, her History of Magic project, alchemy and the League that she hardly had any time to miss her friends. She did miss them, though. It hurt her that Ron was relying on Harry only to get back into his classes, not on her. However, the most important thing was that Ron got well, not how he got well.

After a few seconds of silence in which Harry rubbed his face with both hands, he said: "She's unchanged, actually. She's just sitting there, crying, and saying that she will never see him again, and that she will die of a broken heart. It's so –" he took a deep breath, then continued in a strained voice, "so _sick, really. I mean, Snape is just so disgusting, and it was so sick of him to give her that potion! How could he? I hope they put him into Azkaban for the rest of his days when they catch him!" _

Hermione shook her head. "They told you it was an accident, didn't they?"

Harry snorted. "Yeah, right. He gave her that potion by accident. I don't believe it. Snape is just such a – such a _sick bastard!"_

Hermione shook her head. She didn't know exactly what had happened between Snape and Cho; the most absurd rumours were circulating in school. "But he didn't – he didn't _touch her, did he?" she asked Harry, who might know more._

Harry shuddered briefly. "Don't think so," he murmured, staring at the floor. It was obvious that he was reluctant to even think about such things. 

To give him something else to think about, something that didn't have to do anything with Ron or Cho, Hermione asked: "By the way, how's the Thestral?"

Still not looking at her, Harry almost smiled. "I've seen him outside a couple of times. The snow does not seem to harm him; a few days ago, I've seen him rolling in it. His wings were throwing snow all over the place, and he got me wet from head to toe." He looked pleased. _It must be love_, Hermione decided.

"Hagrid said he tried to use him in one of his lessons," Hermione told him. "He bribed him with carrots and everything, and asked him to come to his hut at a specific time. Of course, the Thestral didn't show up. Hagrid insists it's not because the creature didn't understand him, but because he's an unreliable character who makes off with carrot bribes."

Harry chuckled. "He told me the same story." He hesitated for a moment, then he said: "Hey, let's get Ron down here to sit with us. I'll see if I can make him leave his bed for once. Let's–" he paused again, obviously wondering what the three of them could do once they were sitting together, "let's play Exploding Snap."

Hermione managed not to stare at him. They hadn't played Exploding Snap for ages. Sixth Years didn't play Exploding Snap.

"Yes, that would be nice," she replied. "See if you can get him down here."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the evening, there was a League meeting. Hermione was very eager to get there, because she wanted to talk to Ambrose Curtis about working together on the panacea. Sneaking out of the castle and into the League camp had become a routine task for her: She attended meetings regularly. Other than that, she had never done any work for the League, although she had sworn her oath ages ago and was a proper member now. Penthesilea said that they didn't want her to undertake any kind of dangerous tasks as she was still underage. Of course, in terms of work, Hermione had enough on her plate already, but sometimes she wondered whether the League was still checking her out.

She made her way into the League camp through the secret passage hidden by the chestnut tree. Then she went into the meeting hut of the camp. The main room was crammed with thirty or forty chairs lined up in a slightly crooked circle, most of them still empty. Someone had already distributed platters of leftover Christmas biscuits on three small tables and on the shelves lining the walls. On the small cast-iron stove, the teakettle was whistling again; thirty people were likely to drink a lot of tea, Hermione thought.

Besides the leading figures of the League camp, Penthesilea, Ambrose Curtis and Lucy Callahan, Hermione had gotten to know a few people living in the hidden enclosure, but not all of those who regularly attended the meetings. A few people greeted her with a wave; Florean Fortescue, who must have come from London to attend the meeting, nodded kindly. Hermione made a mental note to ask him for help with her History of Magic project later; he wasn't supposed to give her any forthright information, but maybe he might hint at some books that would be useful. Right now, however, the person she wanted to talk to was Ambrose.

Wrapped up in a conversation with Lucy Callahan, the dark-skinned Unspeakable only noticed Hermione when she placed herself right next to him. He gave her a welcoming smile, but kept on listening to Lucy.

"Still, I'm not sure whether we can trust him. Some of his reports are far from satisfying, especially those concerning –" she cast a sidelong glance at Hermione. _Fine, Hermione thought – _here's someone else who does not want to trust me.__

"I think she knows," Ambrose said, noticing Lucy's glance. "Hermione," he addressed her directly, "do you know about someone who used to be hidden at Hogwarts Castle? A – a _friend of your teacher, Professor Varlerta?"_

"Sirius Black," Hermione said quietly to show that she indeed knew who he was talking about.

 "And where is he now?" Ambrose asked on.

"With his friend," Hermione said evasively. Loyalty was a complicated thing. She'd have trusted Curtis, but there were a lot of people she didn't know very well in the same room. Saying aloud that Sirius Black and the murderer of the Minister of Magic had eloped to the United States aided by teachers of her school, seemed a bit risky.

"We've got to talk – _after the meeting," Curtis told her a bit authoritatively. Hermione nodded; she wanted very much to talk to Curtis, too._

The meeting itself was, Hermione had to admit, as boring as usual. The League was the second conspirational organisation she belonged to, Dumbledore's Order being the first. Both held long and insufferably boring meetings. People reported of their plans, of their problems and actions, and communicated about cooperating in putting plans into action, in solving problems, in coordinating their actions with a common goal in view. Meetings, Hermione knew, were extremely useful; but they also gave her a boredom-induced headache. On a day like this, she could not help wishing that every group she belonged to could be as simple as the group of three she had formed together with Ron and Harry: Perceive a problem, blindly plunge into action, fight tooth and nail, and succeed as well as you could. Her mind soberly disapproved of such a course of action; her temper, however, secretly approved.

While her mind talked of risks, her temper said things had always turned out right in the end – at least for her. Therefore, she did not want to discuss how to protect those families that were half Muggles, half magical, how to protect Muggle-born witches and wizards as well as their families: Much rather, she would have gone out, wand in hand, and battled the Death Eaters attempting to harm them. She did not want to discuss what to do about the students of Durmstrang being trained as future Death Eaters; she wanted to fly there immediately, infiltrate them with the help of other Hogwarts students, and convince them to change sides. She did not want to talk about American Death Eaterism becoming an issue, even a danger; she wanted to – well, to do battle. That was part of the problem with her simple solutions to all these problems, though: Half of them depended on her enemies being good natured and persuadable, and half of them included killing her enemies. She knew that both halves of her solutions were flawed, and that therefore, discussion was not a bad idea. Therefore, she patiently sat through all the meetings. She just wished they wouldn't be needed.

Then, of course, there was the big issue of the forthcoming election: The League members were discussing how to best support their candidate, Arthur Weasley. Hermione found the idea of Ron's father becoming Minister of Magic very strange; it also seemed to her that Arthur Weasley was not what most witches and wizards might expect of someone holding that office. However, his well-known, absolute integrity and his loyalty to Dumbledore seemed to make him the best bet for the League: It could not be one of them, Penthesilea had explained to Hermione, as this would mean a conflict in loyalty. Hermione had thought that Penthesilea, a Ministry of Magic Official herself, would have done well in the office herself, but realised that the witch, well-known for her League membership, just might not be elected by very many people. The same might be true of the poor, slightly odd Arthur Weasley; however, as he was running for the office, what's more, running against Lucius Malfoy, she agreed that the League had to do their best to support their preferred candidate.

After the meeting, Ambrose Curtis motioned for her to follow him into a small room adjoining the larger one for meetings. This room only held four chairs and a tiny table; it was considerably colder than the meeting room, as it had no heater of its own. Hermione wrapped herself in her cloak and sat down, waiting for Ambrose to speak, as he had initiated the tête-à-tête. 

"Have you heard from Remus Lupin lately?" Ambrose asked without further introduction. 

Hermione shook her head. 

"So they haven't told you," Ambrose said. Noticing Hermione's confused look, he continued: "Remus Lupin is currently residing in Hogwarts Castle again. He is said to have returned to search for a spy called Pettigrew."

Hermione's face must have betrayed that she had heard the spy's name before, because Ambrose said as much: "I see, you are familiar with who Pettigrew is and what he's done. But that is not the issue here. I'm talking about Lupin. I want you to find out whether he is the real Lupin, as there are certain doubts about his identity."

"You say he's up in the castle again?" Hermione asked. "Goodness – I thought he was in America. It was very risky for him to come back here. If they catch him, they might kill him."

"True, but this is not the whole issue," Ambrose replied. "Things are a bit suspicious, you know. We have no idea what has happened to Black. Remus Lupin has returned to Hogwarts, and Dumbledore appears to trust him. Of course, Dumbledore usually knows best. However, certain League members wonder whether this is still the case. Dumbledore has been tricked by impostors before."

Hermione felt her heart sink. What had happened to Sirius? Why hadn't she heard a word of Lupin's return? Did Harry know of any of this? Ambrose's words contained a vague threat. "You mean there's someone drinking Polyjuice Potion up in the castle, posing as Lupin, maybe spying on us – someone who has imprisoned Lupin and Sirius Black?" she asked.

Ambrose shrugged. "Possible," he replied rather curtly.

"So you want me to find out whether this is the case?" she insisted.

Ambrose hesitated briefly, then he replied: "Understand this is not a task the League asks you to do. It would be great if we knew more, and you are the only League member currently residing in the castle. However, being underage, you should not expose yourself to any kind of risk or danger, neither for the League nor for anyone. For one thing, always remember that if you have not been told of Lupin's presence, you do not officially know about it. Therefore, you cannot just walk around and ask questions. For another, if our suspicions are correct, we are talking of an extremely risk-friendly, if not unscrupulous, character here. Only think about it – the guy is not only posing as someone else, constantly risking exposure if he is deprived of his Polyjuice Potion – he is also posing as someone who is wanted for murder. Therefore, if our suspicions are correct, we might be talking about someone who has little qualms about hurting people to reach his aims. It would be extremely unwise to approach him directly with questions. Special care is needed."

"First I'd have to find him, anyway," Hermione replied. In spite of herself, in spite of her general scepticism, she was quivering with excitement shooting through her veins. The first task she was asked to do for the League! Somehow the thought elated her; the feeling reminded her of the adventures she had shared with Harry and Ron. 

"I know I shouldn't really ask you to do this," Ambrose replied as in affirmation, "but somehow I think you are up to the job, and it would really be a relief to know what is going on. Just don't shame me by getting yourself into any kind of danger, if you please. Always put your own safety first."

"Of course, I will," Hermione replied, her thoughts already up in the castle and on Lupin's trail. If she wasn't mistaken, there was a kind of antidote against Polyjuice Potion, a potion revealing your true appearance, wasn't there? She'd ask Professor Lyons, or possibly Nicholas Flamel.

Ambrose smiled at her and put his hand on the doorknob, getting ready to open the door. "I'm glad we had a chance to talk. I don't want to keep you past your bedtime, because I know you work hard at school and with Perenelle and Nicholas."

Suddenly Hermione remembered: She had almost forgotten to ask Ambrose about that! "They said I could learn about Alchemy, but that I'm not – that I haven't got whatever it takes to be an Unspeakable. They said I should find myself a partner to do alchemy, for example you. Will you work with me?"

Ambrose stared at her for a moment. Hermione realised that she had said all this extremely fast. Finally, the dark-skinned wizard's face broke into a grin. "Sure," he replied, "I'd like that. You want to meet up in the laboratory tomorrow afternoon after your classes?"


	20. Harry

20 – Harry 

When Hermione approached him very apprehensively to talk about Sirius, Harry felt his conscience give a pang. Of course, he had been warned not to breathe a word about his godfather to anyone else, but that would not have kept him from sharing secrets with his best friends in the past. However, things were not like they had once been in the past with Ron, Hermione and him anymore: Hermione seemed busier than ever, so busy, in fact, that Harry had idly wondered whether she had acquired another time-turner. Ron was ill, and Harry himself – well, sometimes it seemed to him he was carrying a heavy load of people on his back, people he was worrying about: Ron, for one thing, Cho, for another, and, till recently, Sirius. Well, at least and to his great relief, he knew now that Sirius was alright.

When Hermione had asked him whether he had ever heard from Sirius since his godfather's disappearance, her face aglow with 'I know something you don't know,' Harry had simply nodded. "You tell me what you know, and I'll tell you what I know," he'd said. At that point, Hermione had given him that odd look, a little relieved, a little curious, but mostly hurt. Seeing her, Harry realised he should have shared his knowledge with his friends immediately, be they sick, well or busy.

"Professor Varlerta took me into a Muggle town a couple of days ago and called him from a Muggle phone booth," he whispered to her. Hermione moved her armchair even closer to his, obviously trying to make him speak even more softly. Harry found her over-careful; their corner of the common room was empty besides them, while in the main part of the room some of the younger students were playing a raucous game involving a couple of Wizard Wheeze products. All in all, it was too noisy for anyone else to overhear their conversation. Nevertheless, he humoured her apprehension and breathed at minimum volume: 

"Sirius is still in New York with someone Varlerta knows, obviously. He is alright. He said he sent me a couple of letters with Muggle mail which never arrived. Lupin's returned to Britain, because they are on Wormtail's trail and split up to find him."

"That's great news," Hermione said, almost smiling. "I heard about Lupin, too, so I wondered what had happened to Sirius." 

"Where did you hear about Lupin?" Harry asked. There were still a lot of Aurors looking for Remus Lupin, so he didn't think information concerning his whereabouts should be available to everybody. Of course, _he_ knew how trustworthy Hermione was, but he could not help wondering who else was disclosing dangerous information to her.

Hermione hesitated. Finally she said: "Ambrose Curtis told me. He knows Sirius is your godfather, and that we both care about Lupin, so he told me what he had heard."

Somehow, her reply made Harry uneasy, though he could not say why that was the case right then. Still he wondered why the wizard who had taught them wanded combat in Professor Varlerta's class should tell Hermione such things, which were definitely not supposed to be common knowledge. Still, of course it was good of Hermione to think of Harry straight away, even though her information, taken on its own, would have increased Harry's worries. Her behaviour showed him that she was still his friend even if they did not spend much time together these days.

Ill at ease with expressing such feelings, he asked after a pause: "Do you think they have a chance of catching Wormtail?"

Hermione shrugged. "I heard there's a lot of people out there, looking for him. Maybe the two of them will get lucky, but to be honest, I doubt it. Let's face it, the fact that they split up to find him strongly suggests that they don't even know in which country to look."

Harry hadn't really thought of that, but as often, coming from Hermione's mouth, the statement made sense. He wished it didn't, though. The telephone conversation had put a soothing lid of ease on the spluttering cauldron of his worries about Sirius. Somehow, Hermione had managed to uncover his unease again, and – surprise! – he found he was _still_ worried about Sirius. There were a few inexplicable elements in his godfather's story – the long silence, the lost letters, the separation from Lupin. Could there be something fishy about the whole story? But why would his godfather lie to him?

Hermione stared into the semi-darkness of their shady common room corner. Watching her, Harry realised that she was thinking about something, maybe making up her mind. Finally, she said:

"You see, Harry, someone told me that Lupin – that the person we _think_ is Lupin might not be Lupin at all, that he's just another person filled up to the brim with Polyjuice Potion. Do you think we could find out whether that's the case?"

"How can we do that when we don't know where he is?" Harry asked, frowning. He found all this talk about false Lupins rather alarming and suddenly wished Hermione would change the subject to Chocolate Frogs or Fizzing Whizbees, or even to the current, disastrous state of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. 

Of course, such wishes were idle thinking; Hermione replied: "Oh, he's here in the castle somewhere. All we have to do is find him."

"How do you know that – have you seen him?" Harry retorted, surprised by her reply.

"Er, no – that's just what I heard," Hermione answered, not looking at him.

"Where in the world do you get all that information from, Hermione? It sounds like you've got a web of spies working for you," Harry broke out, waiting for an explanation or at least a denial.

It never came; Hermione just stared at her fingers. Harry noticed that some of her fingernails were broken, and that there was something like gold dust under one of those which weren't. Traces of Alchemy, he knew.

"Look, I can't really tell you," Hermione finally said very quietly.

"Oh, you can't? I thought we were friends," Harry said, regretting his acerbic tone as soon as he had uttered the words.

Hermione sighed. "Trust me, then. I know what I'm doing, and I know I'm not going to do any harm. I'll tell you one day, when it's safe to tell you – I promise."

Harry put his hands over his eyes and rubbed them hard. "Don't tell me you are in trouble, too. That's just what I need right now – yet _another_ person to worry about!"

Hermione laughed – a genuine, careless Hermione laugh as Harry hadn't heard in a long while. "Blimey, thanks Harry – I _knew_ you are a true friend!"

"That's not how I meant it, and you know it," Harry replied, slightly impatient. "If you _are_ in trouble, you've got to tell me. It's just recently – it's all becoming a bit too much for me, you know?"

Hermione patted him on the shoulder; somehow Harry thought that he felt a little bit of irony in her gesture, even though he could not tell how he got that impression. "I'm not in trouble, Harry, don't worry. I just have a private little secret, a perfectly harmless one, I assure you."

A strange thought crossed Harry's mind. "The secret doesn't happen to have to do with Ambrose Curtis, does it?" he asked.

Hermione worsened his fears by blushing so much that it was even visible in the darkish corner they were sharing. "No, not at all, why do you ask?" she replied. Then, before he could answer her question, she continued rather quickly: "Now, about Lupin, or maybe some spy posing as Lupin, we really have to do something. There is an antidote potion which shows you whether someone has acquired his outward appearance by taking Polyjuice Potion. As a matter of fact, it's a bit like Muggle Litmus paper: It's a tasteless and colourless potion, but if you drink it after you've drunken Polyjuice Potion, you turn bright green. If you haven't had any Polyjuice Potion, you turn purple. I admit it's kind of obvious if we use this potion, but it seems this is the quickest way to find out the truth."

For a moment, Harry wondered why nobody had subjected the assumingly false Lupin to this test if things were really that easy. Apparently, somebody, probably Ambrose Curtis, had told Hermione of his suspicion. Why then hadn't the adult wizard tried the Litmus potion on Lupin himself? After what had happened two years ago, why wasn't anybody else suspecting anything? However, precisely the memory of what had happened after the Triwizard Tournament, the memory of how a teacher he trusted had turned out to be a Polyjuice impostor, made Harry agree with Hermione. Nobody, not even   
Dumbledore, had suspected anything back then. As Ron had once said, Dumbledore himself had made plenty of mistakes, had been frequently deluded by spies and impostors. Therefore, once more it seemed best that Harry and Hermione took matters into their own hands.

"Tell me what we can do to find this person who may be posing as Lupin," Harry said.

Hermione shrugged. "We have to keep our eyes open, as we do not know where he might be hiding. No matter whether he's really Lupin or just a Polyjuice impostor, coming back here must have been extremely risky. Of course, the Investiwitches have left the castle after their search. Still, Lupin is wanted dead or alive for the murder of the Minister of Magic. The impostor – if it is an impostor – is risking being thrown into Azkaban for that crime if he is caught looking like Remus Lupin. That's why I thought both Dumbledore and he will make sure that he is hidden extremely well in this castle. If anybody sees him and word gets around, we will really have a problem here."

Harry nodded. As usual, what she said made sense. "So do you think we have a chance of finding him?" he asked.

Hermione shrugged. "Maybe not. Then again – don't call me superstitious, but we usually do not have to look for dangerous things to do. Judging from experience, they frequently find _us_, don't you think so?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After classes had ended the next day, Harry went to the tower above Ravenclaw Hall to see Cho Chang. Officially proclaimed to be suffering from a magical accident, Cho had been permitted to stay away from the normal buzz of the school until she felt better, even though teachers had probably encouraged her to feel better as soon as possible. However, Cho had kept to her seclusion for more than a month now, ignoring all suggestions that she should go back to her classes. As often before, Harry found her sitting on the windowsill, her knees drawn up to her chin, hugging her legs and gazing out of the slightly steamed-up window into the grey winter sky.

"Hi Cho," Harry said and sat down on an armchair next to the windowsill. At first, he had been embarrassed to come here and to be alone with her, but after a while, the embarrassment had worn off. Cho didn't usually say much, but she seemed glad he came to see her again and again, if the word 'glad' was not inappropriately used for somebody so sorrowful.

"Harry, it's nice to see you," Cho said quietly. She turned around on the windowsill until she half faced him, then hugged her knees again, assuming the exact position she had had before.

"How are you feeling today?" Harry asked, as always.

"Surviving," she replied with a crooked smile. "Sometimes I wish I wasn't."

"You have to," Harry said encouragingly. "You can't let this get you down so much. You have to get on with your life, go to your lessons again, practise –" Quidditch, he had been going to say, but had caught himself in time. Bereft of her wand, magically impeded by a potion she took every day, Cho didn't have much of a life left to go on with. Between Snape's impeding potion and his love potion, the fugitive Potions master had managed to utterly destroy everything that made up the Cho Harry had come to love. Nevertheless, all of Cho's thoughts were not with her own situation, but with Snape.

"How can I live?" she asked. "He's out there somewhere in the cold, or imprisoned by the enemy, being tortured, if he hasn't been killed yet. They say he has gone over to the enemy. I do not believe he would do such a thing. But if it is true, I wish he had taken me with him, even straight into torture and death, rather than leaving me here."

"He's despicable," Harry said. "Cho, you've _got_ to stop thinking of him." The thought of Cho longing for Snape made him physically sick.

Cho moved her head until she looked Harry directly in the eyes. She had not done this for a long, long time.

"Harry, you are the only friend I've got in this world. You are the only one who still bothers to come and see me, except for the nurse and whoever brings me food. They all shun me because I love a man everybody else despises, because I can't give him up even if I give up everything else. Will you, too, abandon me because you think my truest and most intense feelings are nothing but a magical accident?" 

_It is the potion at work in her, it is not her fault_, Harry repeated in his thoughts like a mantra. Then he went to her and put an arm around her shoulder. "I will never abandon you, Cho, no matter what happens," he told her in a gentle voice. "I don't want you to be unhappy, and I do hope that this potion will wear off soon, but no matter who you love, I will always be there for you."

"It is _not_ a potion that makes me feel what I feel – my love is true," Cho murmured, but she put her head on Harry's shoulder and let him draw her close to him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ron had never been a particularly good student, but for the first time ever, Harry was truly wondering if his friend would pass the finals of the year. True, unlike Harry, he had failed his OWLs in Potions and Transfiguration (but had narrowly passed, unlike Harry, his Divination OWLs). However, OWLs were another matter; you were _supposed_ to fail at least one or two unless you were Hermione Granger. The sixth year's finals, on the other hand, were just finals, and everyone attending the classes he or she was still taking should be able to pass them. Sixth year's finals were supposed to be relatively manageable, at least compared to NEWTs at the end of the seventh year. 

Both Ron and Harry had kept the subjects Defence against the Dark Arts, Charms, Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology. Neither had even signed up to do the Astronomy or History of Magic OWLs; they had simply dropped these subjects. Due to failing their OWLs in Transfiguration and Potions (Ron) and Divination (Harry), they had been forced out of these subjects, too, which left Harry with six and Ron with five subjects. Then, because of his illness, Ron had been pronounced unfit to go to a class on his own, and had dropped out of Divination, too. Instead, he was now going to Potions class together with Harry. This was against school policy, of course, but Professor Lyons had insisted he did not mind: If Ron passed the sixth year finals, he'd even suggest to Professor McGonagall they should count as OWLs, Lyons had said. However, Ron did not appear like he was likely to pass any finals at all this year:

 For almost three months now, he had not been able to focus his attention on anything for a long time, and he was virtually unable to take an active part in any kind of lesson. It wasn't that Ron had suddenly become stupid; it was more a lack of energy, a lack of willpower. Someone with Snape's mean inclination would have said that Ron had simply become even lazier than before, but Harry knew otherwise. While Ron had never been one to be enthusiastic about school work in any way, Harry knew he really _could_ work on things if he was really interested – Quidditch, for one thing, Ensouling, for another. Now Ron had not Ensouled anything since summer. At first, Ensouling just did not seem to work for him anymore for unknown reasons; Mr. Pigmalgion, the Ensouling expert, had said Ron might need a creative pause after his Ice Missile injury.  After Halloween, there had been no question of Ron even attempting such an activity: Before he could awaken life in a dead thing, it seemed Ron had to re-awaken life in himself. 

Going back to life meant, among other things, being present at his classes, not physically present, but as an active participant; however, this appeared to be difficult for Ron. It seemed to Harry that getting his friend to have a go at his Charms homework was harder than doing his own homework. As they showed their essays to Flitwick, Harry saw the tiny teacher frown upon Ron's short text and his irregular writing decorated with a couple of ink blotches. In spite of all his efforts, Ron had not produced anything acceptable. Since his injury, it was as if, for Ron, life was like struggling through breast-high water now, while everybody else just walked on land with ease. Harry could not understand it. Then again, thanks to Remus Lupin, he had not been hit by an Ice Missile himself, of course.

Flitwick's lessons were mostly boring these days. Bereft of his wand, the teacher insisted it would be better to get all the theory covered first before they went on to the complex charms that were NEWTs material. Of course, everyone saw through his lies. Harry knew that older students, for example Fred and George, had done the theory last, at the end of the seventh year. Charms you could practise over time, improving up to your NEWTs, they had explained. Theory, on the other hand, was a thing likely to be forgotten over time if it had no practical application. No, Harry knew that Flitwick had changed his syllabus not because the teacher had improved it in any way, but because he could not teach the way he had always taught, as he himself could not do any magic now. Like everyone else, the Charms teacher was probably hoping for the panacea to be done soon. Until then, the students had to write essays, and then more essays.

Currently, they were discussing the principle of _time/place alteration_, a principle which was at work in Vanishing and Conjuring charms, and, in a more complex form, in Apparating. Banishing and Summoning charms were used only for _simple place alteration_, something which, as Professor Varlerta had once put it, did not differ so very much from a Muggle getting up and fetching something, or throwing it across the room. The main magical property of these charms was 'will-controlled flying motion', as Ron and Harry had both successfully explained in their Charms OWLs. In contrast, Vanishing something or Conjuring it up meant a _'tempus-dimension change'_ as well. (The sixth year students presently were up to the technical vocabulary of Charms theory quite well, a consequence of excessive essay writing.) If you Banished something, it just flew to the other side of the room; if you   
Vanished it, you did not know where it would re-appear. Mostly, Vanished objects re-appeared some time in the future at an unobserved place, thereby frequently confusing Muggles. It was similar with Conjuring something up: With this charm, you seemed to fetch an object out of sheer nothingness, but in reality, if you Conjured up a cup of tea, it probably meant that somewhere in the near future, a Muggle would look around in his or her office, wondering: 'Now, where _did_ I put that cup?' 

Of course, there were strict laws regulating such spells, another topic for ceaseless essay writing: You were not allowed to Conjure up objects worth more than five Galleons, and you were obliged to Vanish them back once you were done with them. Hermione had proposed in class that this practice only increased the confusion of the victimised Muggles and had asked whether this was a strategy to keep Muggle self-confidence low: Her mother, she'd said, would often look for something, swearing she had put it in a certain place; when the object in question re-appeared at precisely that place some time later, Mrs Granger would doubt her own sanity. This way, Hermione had complained in class, Muggles learned to doubt their own perception, explaining away occasional sightings of dragons, Apparating wizards or similar. However, Flitwick had told her she was paranoid, seeing anti-Muggle strategies wherever she looked. Harry wasn't sure about it himself.

The current essay the class had been asked to write dealt with the principle_ of time/place alteration_, or, more precisely, a comparison of the spells and charms in question. As often, Flitwick asked Hermione to read out her essay as a model for the other students. This was often informative, sometimes even more informative than reading the textbook; sometimes, however, it was slightly discouraging, too.

 "Firstly, an Apparating spell," Hermione read aloud, "involves a tempus-dimension change like a Vanishing or Conjuring spell. A person or an object is re-located in space and in a way also in time; this re-location does not involve something flying through the air, but the dissolution of it in the dimensions of time and space. Therefore, the Apparating spell shares the suddenness of appearance and disappearance with the Vanishing and the Conjuring spell. Unlike them, however, the Apparating spell requires a far higher level of control from the witch or wizard using it. If someone, for example, Banishes an object, after the spell he or she does not know where exactly the object goes. 

"Quite obviously, an Apparating spell involves re-locating a person, not an object; more precisely it means re-locating your own body. Therefore, you obviously do not lose track of the object you are moving; neither is its final destination of no concern to you: You want to arrive exactly in the place you intend to go. This takes up a lot of concentration; inexperienced witches and wizards often either lose track of their intended destination or of their dimension control spell, which insures that their body arrives in one piece. The latter mistake causes the so-called 'splinch', which is illegal and dangerous. 

"Secondly, all three spells involve a time-relocation which always involves the future, but never the past: Just like you cannot fetch something from the past or deposit it there with a spell, you can never Apparate into the past, but only into the future. However, it is both illegal and impractical to go to a future further away than two NATIs, which is short for Normal Apparition Time Interval. Depending on the distance travelled and the experience of the witch or wizard in question, a NATI can be anything from two to thirty seconds.

"Finally, there are different legal limits to the different spells. You may never Vanish anything dangerous, potentially harmful, or anything which endangers Anti-Muggle security; you may never Conjure up something which is worth more than five Galleons, and you have to Vanish it back if you are done with it. However, you do not need a license to do these spells, as long as you have come of age and have acquired at least two OWLs. For Apparating, there is a separate license you can only get by being of age and by passing a separate test."

"Very well done, as always, Miss Granger," Flitwick piped. "Everybody else, please see whether you have something to correct in your homework."

Hermione sat down as the other Sixth Year Gryffindors knocked their knuckles onto their desk as a form of applause. Harry could only agree with them: Even though his essay contained most of the important points Hermione had mentioned, she simply knew how to put it best. It would have taken him quite a long time to write such a well-structured essay; Ron might not have been able to do it at all, given his current state of mind. Harry could not help wondering how Hermione could find the time to do her homework so well: Unlike all other students he knew, she had not kept five, six or seven subjects, but eight; in addition to this, she was doing her History of Magic NEWTs project and was studying Alchemy. She had to be the most effective student in the school, he thought while correcting a few points in his own essay. Meanwhile, Hermione was adding a few things to Ron's essay, "for his notes," as she said.

"Now, we have gotten ahead quite well in the theory of _time/place-alteration_," Flitwick said. "There is, by the way, one more spell, or rather curse, which is related to the spells we are discussing. Does anybody know it?"

It was 'guessing what the teacher wants to hear' again, Harry thought wryly: Flitwick had asked a quiz question, hoping that somebody would happen to know the answer. Of course, as usual, the teacher got lucky, because Hermione appeared to have the information he wanted to hear: Her arm went straight up into the air. When Flitwick asked her to speak up, she replied:

"You probably mean the Eliminatus curse, Sir."

"That's right, Miss Granger," Flitwick squeaked gleefully, "the Eliminatus curse. What can you tell me about it?"

"The idea of the Eliminatus curse is that the object in question disappears altogether. This axiom, of course, is impossible to prove, but neither has anybody ever been able to prove it wrong, which, to the mind of an Arithmancist, is proof enough for the time being. Therefore, we assume that the Eliminatus curse indeed does not re-locate an object, but 'un-locates' it, as they say in the books." Hermione's voice inflection made the quotation marks around that term perfectly audible; her face was beaming, as always when she was relating a complicated piece of knowledge to her fellow students. "Still, the theorists believe that the curse is related to _time/place-alteration_. However, as the curse has been outlawed by the General Curse Ban of 1947, no more research has been done on this. Of course, there has been a discussion to use it for the elimination of dangerous objects, for example nuclear waste, a very harmful substance produced by Muggles."

Flitwick nodded. "Yes, this has been discussed. On the other hand, as you said, it is totally unclear whether an Eliminatus curse indeed wipes substances or objects from the face of the earth. Until we know more about this, it does not seem advisable to alter the laws and experiment with the potential lethal combination of a harmful curse and a harmful substance."

Harry felt himself shudder. He had heard about nuclear waste on the Muggle news a long time ago; it spooked him even more than the strange, forbidden curse Hermione was talking about. He was glad when the conversation turned to the homework the class was supposed to do for the next day, a slightly unpleasant, but nevertheless predictable and harmless topic.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day, after a rather depressing Quidditch practise and a short, but refreshing sky ride on the Thestral, Harry went to see Cho again. She was sitting on the windowsill in the same position as the day before, hugging her knees and gazing out into the fog; if she had not changed her robes, Harry would have thought she had not moved at all. Seeing her greet him with the ghost of a smile, he made another attempt at fetching her back into the real world.

"Cho, it's no wonder you are depressed when you are always sitting here all by yourself in this room," he said. "At least return to sleep in your dormitory, and go to your classes. You can't do magic, true, but you still might be able to pass your NEWTs if you pick up your studies now. Please, Cho, just don't sit around here all day."

Cho sighed. After a short hesitation, she said: "I can't."

"Why? Have you ever tried?" Harry pushed on.

Cho's gaze slipped from of his and back to the window. "I have," she finally said. "You say it's the real world down there. Everybody says so. To me, it is nothing but a meaningless shadow now."

"But maybe that will change some day, and then you might be glad you have gone to your classes," Harry insisted. "Come on, try again, Cho, it can't hurt, can it?"

"They hurt me," Cho said quietly.

"Who?" Harry was bewildered. Who could have the brutality to hurt Cho, who had suffered so much already?

"The others in my house, and in my year, even my former friends. They treat me like a pariah, and they say I am a slut, a madwoman and a freak. They say terrible things about Severus, and worse things about me. If I do not react to their slander, they grow worse and worse. If I reply in any way, they show how much they despise me. If I cry, they laugh at me. I can't go back there, I really can't."

Harry felt helpless. How could people treat each other that way, instead of supporting those befallen by such a misfortune? He wanted to encourage Cho, but he did not know what to say. Finally, an idea started to form in his head. It was his last trump card, a trump card he hated, a trump card which made him physically sick. He wished he could think of something else to say, but finally he gave in to the desire to make Cho return to life, so he said:

"But what would Snape say if he knew you're hiding here up in the tower all the time, neglecting your studies and risking your degree? He wouldn't approve, would he? And you know that he does not tolerate weakness. If you were to tell him what you have told me, wouldn't he ridicule you for your fears? He would expect you to bravely face all your classmates, no matter what they say."

Harry watched Cho dabbing at her eyes with the sleeve of her robe. When she did not reply, he urged her: "Go back to your house and to your classes, Cho, even if you only do it for Snape."

"You are right," Cho admitted. "Severus would not tolerate my behaviour. But I can't change it – I'm just not strong enough to face everybody again."

"If it is Snape you love, you should be strong," Harry retorted, hating himself for his own hypocrisy. "Think about how proud he is, and how he defied all the students who hate him every day. Shouldn't you prove you are as strong and proud as him, even in the face who treat you meanly?"

 "But what difference would it make?" she asked, desperation in her voice. "Severus surely is dead, or imprisoned by the enemy. He will never know how strong I am, or whether or not I get my NEWTs."

"How do you know?" Harry asked, though in his heart he hoped she was right. "Maybe he is sly enough to escape, or maybe he is hiding somewhere. You said you could not give him up, but to me it seems you already did if you insist he is not coming back."

"You think there's hope, then?" Cho asked, her liquid brown eyes directed at Harry.

"Sure," he replied reluctantly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry was glad to see Cho in the corridor the next day. She looked thin, and there were black shadows under her eyes; he also noticed that she was alone, not surrounded by popular, giggling friends anymore. However, he also saw that she was carrying a bag full of books, and that she appeared to be aiming for a classroom. When she spotted him, she gave him a tiny wave and even half-smiled as she passed him. He felt as if another one of the burdens on his mind had been lifted: Cho did not look particularly happy, but at least she did not lock herself in the tower anymore. Even though Harry was disgusted with the means he had used to accomplish this, he was satisfied with the outcome. Soon, he hoped, Cho would feel better if she was around people again.                            

 In spite of himself, in spite of his worries, Harry felt elated as he watched Cho descend the stairway towards the door that led out to the greenhouses. Ron, meanwhile, stood by and looked at Harry without a word. All of a sudden, Harry wished Ron would tease him about Cho. He had always hated to be teased about such things before, but suddenly he felt that it would have been such a _normal_ thing if his best friend teased him about staring after a girl. He realised that he was sick of worrying, sick of everybody being sick, that he craved normality. When, oh when would the panacea be done? When would Snape's love potion wear off? Sighing, he said to Ron: "We've got Defence Against the Dark Arts now. Let's go."

Ron followed him with his usual, lifeless nod. Just for the sake of pretence, Harry chatted on: "How did you like that Concealment charm we did yesterday? I thought it was pretty nifty. Now all we have to do is get the hang of it, don't you think?"

"And you'll get there with a bit of practise," a voice came from behind: Coming from one of her extra classes, Hermione had caught up with them. "Hey, was that Cho Chang up and about again?"

Harry nodded, but he did not feel like elaborating: Neither did he want Hermione's congratulations or even praise, nor did he want to tell anybody how he had gotten Cho to go to her classes again.

"Heard anything new about–?" he asked her, knowing she would understand that he was referring to the possibly false Lupin.

Hermione shook her head. Both Harry and her were keeping their eyes open for signs of Lupin, but had not had any luck so far. Not for the first time, it gave Harry a pang that Ron did not demand to be let in on the secret they were obviously sharing. In silence, the three of them walked down the stairways.

In Defence Against the Dark Arts, the Gryffindors were currently learning 'to play hide and seek,' as Professor Varlerta had put it. After spending three months practising wanded combat with Ambrose Curtis, Professor Varlerta had moved on to "more defensive techniques of getting out of a dangerous situation," as she had put it – namely hiding and fleeing. Dismissing all the Gryffindors' techniques that this was "cowards' magic," she had soon managed to motivate them by teaching a couple of spells most students enjoyed using. While it was too difficult even for sixth year students to sustain Invisibility spells over any reasonable amount of time, there were, for example, spells which made any natural form of concealment or camouflage more effective. The Gryffindors had learned that if they managed to apply a Concealment spell correctly, they were tolerably well hidden even behind a tree trunk.

Wrapped in their winter cloaks and red and gold scarves, the Gryffindors went outside to Professor Varlerta's classroom, only to find the sixth year Hufflepuffs waiting there, chatting with the teacher. Turning to the newly arrived Gryffindors, the teacher told them:

"Morning, everybody. Today, we are indeed playing hide and seek. You have five minutes to Conceal yourselves; no more than two people per hiding place are permitted. During that time, your Hufflepuff classmates will wait in my music lab; then they will come out and search the vicinity for you. Later we will reverse roles, and _you_ will have to Unconceal _them_. Play against time and take it as a kind of sport: Twenty points are awarded to the team who finds the first opponent most quickly, and to the team of the person who manages to remain hidden for the longest time. To win points for your house, help each other out as a team and make sure that _everybody_ is well hidden. Just remember that you have only five minutes to Conceal all of you."

With these words, the teacher led the Hufflepuffs inside. The Gryffindors stared at each other for a moment, unable to decide so quickly where to hide. Besides trees and shrubs, there weren't too many options available. After a few seconds, Parvati tugged Lavender's sleeve and pointed at a shrub near the building. Both girls ran up to it, Unpricked it with a quick spell and crawled underneath, giggling loudly. From within the shrub, Harry could hear Parvati say: "_Chameleono_!" They were hidden. 

Harry was looking at the trees surrounding the building. Should they climb up one of them? The Concealment charm worked well if people did not know what to look for, but of course the Hufflepuffs knew the same spells as the Gryffindors and would easily Unconceal them if their hiding places were too obvious.

"Up the building," Seamus shouted. With the help of Neville, he lifted Dean until the boy could reach the edge of the roof. Harry heard a neighing and then the flapping of great wings; obviously, the two had disturbed the invisible Thestral up there. Dean turned around to pull Seamus up after him, while Neville gave Seamus a hand up, and Harry shoved up Seamus' rear end. Within seconds, both boys lay flat on their stomach, made as good as invisible by the camouflage spell.

Meanwhile, Hermione had been murmuring incantations; suddenly, a large hole opened in the grass beneath her feet. It widened until it was large enough to admit two people. Hermione gave Harry a questioning look. "Me and Neville in here, you two up the tree?" she asked breathlessly. Time was running out, and there were still four people to hide. 

Harry nodded and pulled Ron by his wrist. He had no inclination to mess with the half-frozen, slightly muddy ground himself, so he said: "Let's take that pine tree," as most trees standing nearby had shed their leaves for the winter. Ron, taller than Harry by a good deal, helped Harry reach the lowest branch. Harry tried to climb, but, unlike many deciduous trees, the pine did not seem to be made for climbing. Wishing he had picked a different tree but knowing it was too late to change his mind now, Harry tentatively stepped on the next branch and pulled himself upwards, making room for Ron to follow. Below him, Ron found a few protruding points on the trunk to step on and pulled himself after Harry as well as he could, with Harry still being half in the way. _There is nothing wrong with Ron's body_, Harry thought; his disease was one of the spirit only. Harry tried to climb a bit higher so that Ron could hide his own body between the needled branches of the pine, all the while wishing that he had had the time to Unprick the pine. However, it was more important to do a Concealment charm now. 

Just as Professor Varlerta left her building and counted down from ten to indicate that the Hufflepuffs were coming, Harry fumbled to get his wand and do the spell. However, made clumsy by haste, he let it slip through his fingers. At first he was relieved to see Ron catch it, but then, for the fraction of a second, fear stretched out its cold fingers towards him. His friend had not been permitted to touch a wand for more than three months. Ron's hand closed around Harry's wand; then his eyes met Harry's for a moment, which felt like an eternity. Then, very slowly, Ron handed the wand up to Harry, who cast a hasty and somewhat sloppy Concealment charm.

Coming out of the building, the Hufflepuffs immediately started to systematically search the area. Justin Finch-Fletchly looked into Parvati's and Lavender's shrub, but was deceived by their spell; Hannah Abbot, however, shot a quick Revealing spell up Ron's and Harry's tree and uncovered them at once. Addressed by her, both boys descended, or rather, they slid off the trunk in a jumble of limbs and branches. Harry felt a bit disgruntled. He knew that they were playing a competitive game, and that it lay in the nature of such games that someone had to lose. Losing was a part of sports and games; a good sportsman was a good loser. Nevertheless, as he stood on the side, watching the Hufflepuffs discover Seamus and Dean on the roof, he found it hard not to blame Ron for their unsuitable concealment. _It's not Ron's fault that he is not permitted to hold a wand, that he hardly has a will of his own anymore,_ he told himself. While the Hufflepuffs went back to every shrub and bush nearby and finally discovered Parvati and Lavender, he watched his friend staring into nothingness. _I wish the panacea was done and that he was himself again_, he thought for maybe the thousandth time.

It took the Hufflepuffs a long time to find Hermione and Neville: With some spell unfamiliar to Harry, Hermione, or maybe the two of them, had managed to close up their hole in the ground and to make the grass look untouched. Harry himself could not have pointed out their exact whereabouts even if he had wanted to until Susan bones and Justin Finch-Fletchly finally cast a broad Revealing spell on the ground and discovered fine fractures in the grass. A minute later, they had managed to unearth the last two Gryffindors, who were slightly muddy, but generally cheerful.

After that, the Gryffindors went inside for seven minutes with Professor Varlerta while the Hufflepuffs hid. The teacher explained to the students that the second group would have to get a little more time to hide as the first group had already used all the obvious hiding places, making it more difficult for those who did not want to be found by them. Hermione used the time inside for reminding all her classmates of all the Discovery charms and Revealing spells she knew. Then the students went outside, trying to find the Hufflepuffs more quickly than they had been discovered themselves.

None of them Unconcealed any student as quickly as Ron and Harry had been found. However, after a while Hermione managed to discover a rudimentary Parallelus charm cast around a leafless tree. When she removed it, she found Hannah and Susan. Neville took his flute out of his pocket and started playing; suddenly, two shrubs, one of them the one Parvati and Lavender had used, practically spat out the students hidden in them. Ron found a well-camouflaged Justin Finch-Fletchly simply by stumbling over him; discovered, the boy took off his first-class Chameleon spell. After a while, the whole group had been Unconcealed, so Professor Varlerta awarded both houses twenty points: The Hufflepuffs had found their first students earlier than the Gryffindors had, but Hermione and Neville had managed to stay hidden the longest. Then the teacher ended her class, telling the students they had done a good job. All sixth years brushed the dirt from their robes and got ready to walk back to the castle, fiercely longing for hot chocolate as they realised how long they had been out in the cold.

"Mr Potter and Mr Weasley, can I have a word?" Varlerta asked as the students were leaving. Harry and Ron stopped and walked back towards her. Hermione shot them a curious look; after a nod from the teacher, she stayed behind with them.

"You had a problem up that tree, right? A wand problem?" the teacher asked Harry and Ron. Both boys nodded. Hermione, who had not witnessed the scene as she had been hidden under ground, listened attentively.

"I see you mastered it," Professor Varlerta said and gave Ron an encouraging smile. "I know everything is difficult for you – you can't do magic, you need help with everything, and the Ice Missile which hit you made you ill in another way, too. We can't trust you with a wand, and it must be horrible to know that everyone sees you as a danger. But if you think about today's event, it seems you can trust yourself, at least to a certain extent, and that is the most important thing. What's worse than if we cannot trust ourselves anymore? Well, I saw the whole thing, and it scared me for a moment. Then I saw how you two coped, and it gave me hope. I wanted you to know that, but also that we teachers are around, watching you and the other 'afflicted'. We can't be everywhere, but we do what we can to prevent danger. You are not alone in this."

Ron nodded; he looked slightly comforted. "My father…," he murmured. "If anyone knew…."

"The election worries you, too, doesn't it," Varlerta said softly. "Well, you do have a lot on your plate. But we are here to protect you as well as we can, not only from the danger within you, but also from prying ears and eyes. Nothing of what went on with you will harm your father's chances in the election; we will make that sure."

Ron nodded again. Professor Varlerta gave him an encouraging smile; then she turned to Hermione: "How are things going with the panacea? I know you are doing what you can to help."

Hermione almost smiled for a moment, but then she said: "It's hard to tell. You never know how long things take with a metaphysical substance. We are waiting for the next step of the transformation, but…" she shrugged unhappily, "time is running out."

"I know," Varlerta replied, not smiling now. Then she suddenly put a hand on Hermione's shoulder. "I know it sounds strange, and I know that you really do not need any more pressure, but please do what you can to learn all about Alchemy in the time that is left. Once Nicholas and Perenelle have passed away, you will be the last person in this country, if not in the world, who may still know what to do. Normally, Dumbledore would, because he studied Alchemy, too, and he might still be able to advise you. However, he is ill himself and cannot do any Alchemy work now – that would be far too dangerous."

Hermione bit her bottom lip and nodded, her eyes on her mud-splattered shoes. Then she replied: "I'm going to the lab now." Without another word, she turned on her heels and walked towards the castle.

"Try to get some rest, you two," Varlerta said to Harry and Ron, sounding a little weary herself. "You look like you need it."

"Sure, I'll bring him up the tower," Harry replied dutifully.

"You, too, Harry," the teacher replied. "I know you are working for two, and like all your teachers, I appreciate it. Remember, you have to take care of yourself to be able to take care of others." Then she gave the students a parting nod and walked up to the door of her building, wiping her muddy dragon-hide boots before she entered. 

"Let's go and take an afternoon nap," Harry said to Ron, feeling once more duty-bound. 

Obediently, Ron followed him, but when they reached the castle's door, he said: "I need to go to the hospital wing." 

Ron's statement made Harry slightly uncomfortable, but rather than questioning it, he walked up to Madam Pomfrey's realm together with Ron, expecting his friend to need some kind of treatment.

Instead of seeking the aid of the matron, however, Ron went straight to the bed in which his brother Fred was still lying, staring at the ceiling all day. Ron sat down on the edge of the bed; Harry stood by and watched, wondering what would happen next. For a long time, nobody said anything. Finally, Ron said in a quiet, low voice:

"I think I know what is wrong with me."

Fred turned his head to look at him, but he didn't respond. Harry realised that Fred's condition must have worsened over the last few weeks. Again, he desperately wished for the panacea to be ready.

Ron tried again: "I want to know whether it's the same thing that's wrong with you."

Fred blinked in slow motion; perhaps he meant this as a sign that he understood.

After a long, long pause, Ron finally asked: "Have you lost all your energy because you are trying to stay passive, not to do anything terrible?"

Again, Fred lowered his eyelids.

Ron asked: "If you see your friends and your family, do you ever picture yourself with a wand in your hand, harming them, killing them, cursing them to death?"

Fred hesitated; then he said slowly: "All the time." He did not raise his voice, or show any emotion, but still Harry felt a pain as sharp as a cut when Fred repeated: _"All the time."_


	21. Neville

21 – Neville 

Neville had always had loved plants; even as a boy he had always had a few potted plants around, much to the displeasure of his grandmother, who thought they were messy. In Neville's eyes, plants were peaceful and mostly uncritical; they were water-cool and green, but, unlike Trevor the toad, they usually stayed where you put them. Neville loved their unobtrusive, living presence because in the presence of plants, he never felt he had to be anything more than he was.

The plants usually reciprocated his feelings: If Neville cared for a plant, it usually thrived and grew to an extent which sometimes amazed other plant-lovers. Last year, he had learned that, at least partially, this was due to his music magic: He had realised that he had always hummed to plants without giving it a second thought before Professor Varlerta's teaching. Therefore, the discovery that through music he could communicate with plants was not entirely new to him.

In his last Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson, however, he had tried something new, and had elicited a result far beyond his expectations: When he had played his flute, Coaxing the plants to reveal who was hidden in or among them, the shrubs had responded by practically spitting people out. Professor Varlerta had been awed; so had Neville. He had never thought of persuading a plant to do anything more than they naturally liked to do, namely thriving, growing, and maybe blossoming. The idea to Coax a plant to do something else for him had come to him spontaneously. Now he had to see what he could make of his unexpected ability.

For almost half a year now, Ginny, he and Professor Varlerta had been practising Coaxing living things by musical means. So far, they had practised on animals and on each other; Professor Varlerta had announced they would start on human volunteer subjects in February, and then, some day, try to Coax people who did not expect them to want something of them. All three of them were making progress, but Coaxing living things was no easy task, and for Neville it was the hardest. His rabbit, for example, had never come to him when he called, or lifted a single paw in obedience; frequently, not even Trevor the toad complied with his melodious wishes. He could by now persuade Ginny and Varlerta to do simple tasks for him, but sometimes he suspected that they just knew his tunes, understood what he wanted and only obeyed him to encourage him. This suspicion raised his feelings of hopelessness. It seemed the thing he was best at was supporting Ginny's Coaxing by his tunes: If she took the lead and he fitted himself into her rhythm, her success notably improved. 

Supporting Ginny was all very well, but by itself, not entirely satisfying. Upon his recent discovery, Neville was overjoyed that there appeared to be something he could do better than the others. After the lesson with the Gryffindors, the three of them had gone out into the Forest to Coax some plants. Neville had been the only one who could persuade a tree to bend over so he could climb on it, or make a patch of moss shake out the water in it so he could have a dry seat. Ginny and Varlerta were impressed; neither of them had managed much more than making trees sway a little for them.

"This is a special talent you seem to have, Neville," Varlerta told him. "You have to work on it – you never know when it will become useful." She also talked to Professor Sprout, who agreed to do a special project with Neville, a project which might even count as an extra NEWT. Neville was glad about it. Apart from his special studies with Professor Varlerta, he had only gotten four OWLs – in Herbology, regular Defence Against the Dark Arts, Charms and Divination. The last ones he had passed quite narrowly, in fact. It would impress his Grandmother, not to mention improve his career chances, if he managed to bring home six NEWTs after all, four for the regular classes (_if_ he made it through them) and two for special projects. Professor Sprout had told him she might try cross-breeding plants that would not normally cross-breed, employing Neville's help to persuade the plants to procreate. Somehow, Neville found it indecent to persuade plants to do such a thing, but had decided he would listen to all Professor Sprout had to say before he protested.

For now, Professor Varlerta had assigned him an hour in the greenhouse, trying to make the plants move according to his will. At first, Neville could not believe he had been set such an easy task – plants had always greeted him with movements of their branches and leaves. Convinced he must have misunderstood, he had asked her for confirmation. It was only then that he realised that plants did not greet just everyone by a slight rustle of leaves, by wrapping their roots across fingers. It seemed that there was something special about his relationship with plants. Neville wandered aimlessly between the rows of plants, his flute in one hand, the other one idly stroking the leaves of the plants he passed. True, he had gained some special abilities through his training with Professor Varlerta, and he was the singer of Hogwarts' only rock band now. Therefore, he now felt much less inadequate than, say, during his first four years at Hogwarts. However, his powers of music magic weren't as strong as those of Ginny or the teacher, so he felt a bit inferior even in their training hours. Now it seemed that if he played to plants, he could do things not even Varlerta or Ginny could do. He had seen them try: Plants might move a leaf every now and then if they played to them, but the plants certainly did not seem over-enthusiastic to be Coaxed by them. Neville played a few questioning notes. In response, the nettle he faced rolled up its leaves so that he could touch it without getting stung. He smiled, knowing that to the plants at least, he was special.

In the best of spirits, he walked up to the band room when his hour in the greenhouse was over. The rest of the band was already there; Rhonda and Joolz were tuning their guitars, while Ginny and Kay, who had nothing to tune, were sitting there, watching them. Neville plugged his microphone into the small P.A. and adjusted the volume, nodding a greeting to his band members as he passed them. The subdued noises of musicians warming up the sound of their instruments enveloped him, a sound he had come to love.

"I've written a song," Kay suddenly said from her corner. All eyes turned to her; all instrumental noise ceased. Neville was surprised to hear Kay's voice, because the younger Slytherin girl did not often speak up during band practise. 

"A song? Well, I hope it's not synthie pop," Ginny said without enthusiasm.  

"You haven't even heard it, Gin," Joolz said with slight disapproval in his voice.

"True," Ginny admitted. "Let's hear it, then, Kay." She gave Joolz an apologetic smile.

Kay selected a slightly squawky, organ-like sound on her Muggle keyboard. Then she played a couple of slow minor chord arpeggios, slightly sad, but nevertheless with a steady beat. Joolz looked over her shoulder, probably trying to figure out which chords she was playing, fingering on his fret board as he listened to her. When Kay started over from the beginning, Joolz played a few chords with her, but they clashed audibly with hers.

Kay interrupted her playing, pulled out a piece of parchment and wrote down a couple of letters, some of them decorated with a 'minus'. They were the names of the chords she was playing, Neville realised. Joolz frowned over them for a minute while Rhonda looked over his shoulder; Kay helped by telling him which chord contained which notes. Joolz scribbled a few more letters on the piece of parchment and tried out a few chords on his guitar; then he asked Kay to play again. When he joined in with her this time, it did not sound quite as dissonant as the first time, but his rhythm sounded funny with hers. After a few bars, he reduced it to playing his chords on the first beat of the bar. 

Looking over his shoulder, Rhonda joined in on her bass guitar, playing the root of each chord in time with him. Her low notes seemed to give the music structure; Ginny must have thought the same, because she enhanced them by playing the bass drum in time with Rhonda. Shortly after, she tentatively started to play the high-hat, supplying a basic rhythm. After a while, Joolz stopped playing his chords altogether, but switched to a line of single notes, a tune that weaved itself into Kay's arpeggios. With the reduced guitar and bass and Ginny's sparse rhythm, the music had a gentle, slightly melancholy feel – the feel of a ballad. 

Neville, who had been humming bits and pieces of a melody to himself, felt disturbed by Joolz' single notes at first, because his own ideas did not fit in with them. However, after he had changed the melody just a little bit, he found he rather liked the way the two tune-like phrases seemed to have something like a musical conversation. 

His own melody gradually took shape; after a while he felt it was good enough to be sung over the microphone. He did not have any proper lyrics yet, just a little rhyme that seemed to have come to his head out of nowhere: "If there's a place for everyone, there is a place for me; so give me time and I will find the way that's right for me." 

He must have repeated the phrase twenty or thirty times in different variations when Rhonda finally stopped. The others stopped with her, rubbing their hands or wrists. Neville realised they had been playing that song – or part of a song – for quite a long time, and that he himself was a little hoarse. 

"I like it," Ginny simply said and smiled at the younger girl, partially making up for her former prejudices, Neville thought. 

"Me, too," he said and then looked around for the water jug, wanting to cool his throat.

Rhonda and Joolz agreed. "It's quite a hit – we will put it on our first CD," Joolz said. Kay beamed at him. He, however, blinked at Ginny. Ginny blinked back. It was as if the two of them were sharing a private joke.

"Don't we need a band name before we put out our first CD?" Rhonda asked, raising her eyebrows at them. 

"_You-Know-Who_," Ginny suggested offhandedly. 

"You can't have a band called 'You-Know-Who' if your father is running for Minister of Magic," Rhonda chided her. 

Neville downed his glass of water. Were they really going to argue now?

"Could we maybe get back to the song?" Joolz asked, a hint of impatience in his voice. Everybody nodded.

"Kay, was that supposed to be the verse or the chorus?" Joolz asked the Slytherin.

The younger girl shrugged. "I'm not sure. It's all I've got," she said apologetically.

Joolz turned to Neville. "What would you say?" he asked. "You're the singer." 

Neville swallowed. Was he supposed to make a decision? After taking a few seconds to make up his mind, he said: "For me, it's a chorus, because, er, I've got that phrase to sing, and.…"

Ginny nodded. "Yes, that's what I thought. It's quite catchy."

Everybody agreed with her, so Kay said: "Alright, it's the chorus then. I could see if I can find a verse for it if you want me to."

"Maybe we can all try to think of something, and then we'll take whatever fits best," Joolz suggested. Neville smiled to himself. He had some kind of idea for a verse in his head, even though he could not sing it out now, let alone put it in writing. He would try to figure it out when he got some time to himself. Suddenly he fervently wished he was playing guitar; it would make things easier. Somehow, the flute did not seem to be the best instrument for writing songs on it. Maybe he should ask Professor Varlerta; he knew she was busy, but she had always agreed to help him with everything that concerned music. But first of all, he would try to write a verse on his own.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After finishing his load of homework, Neville decided that even though it was quite late now, he would find the time to pin down his idea for a verse in some way. It had been swimming in his head for the rest of the evening, but he was afraid that if he went to sleep without conserving it in any way, it would be lost in the morning. Therefore, he waited for the common room to empty: He did not feel comfortable with practising his flute with anybody else around, let alone with trying to find a tune that existed only as fragments inside his head. However, a couple of fifth year students were still up, griping about OWLs and convincing each other they would all fail miserably at everything if they did not spend the whole of this particular night studying. Neville felt like telling them that they still had a couple of months until OWLs, and that they should hurry on to bed immediately, but he knew they would not listen to him. Therefore, he just had to wait for fatigue to get the better of the younger students. To spend his waiting time usefully, he hummed the tune from his head very softly. To keep up with its structure and to get an idea of its rhythm, he kept the time by tapping on his right thigh. It helped: The idea in his head started to take shape. After a while, Neville felt he could make some notes on a scrap piece of parchment. He did not write down actual music notes, but tried to help himself remember the tune by writing down a couple of numbers and cryptic signs that were to signify the rhythm and pitch of his melody. Then he suddenly realised that all the time, he had had words in mind which might go with his tune: "They say that people are just like a jigsaw puzzle, to fit into each other, form a whole." 

Well, maybe this was the way to memorise his tune, he thought: Maybe he could just remember it together with the proper words. It should be something which stated not two people were the same, but that they were all needed, that they belonged together. If people were a jigsaw puzzle, then each of them had his or her place, each of them was needed – even he was. Neville felt that his lyrics should be about himself, about his place at school and in the band, but also about something bigger, about society as a whole. If the simile of the jigsaw puzzle was accurate, if everyone was needed, then everyone was valuable. Yes, this sounded like the kind of thing he would have liked to express with his lyrics. But how could he put these things into words, what's more, into lyrics which rhymed?

Toying with the words, suddenly eager to produce the lyrics for a whole verse, he wrote down a couple of lines, but still had trouble with the rhymes. He jotted down a couple of words that had potential, but did not get his intended meaning across: What should he rhyme with 'whole'? 'Common goal'? Well, maybe. Certainly not 'coal' or 'foal', he decided. Or should he rhyme something with 'the same' – perhaps 'game', at least much rather than 'lame' or 'tame'? Yawning, he realised he wasn't quite sure what he wanted; after a few more failed attempts to write a whole verse, he decided he might as well call it a day. He would try again the next afternoon whenever he got a few precious minutes to himself. As he had pondered over the words, the tune spun around in his head; he was sure he would not forget it anytime soon now. Gathering up his belongings, he rose and half-stumbled up the staircase into his dormitory, leaving the common room to the fifth years.

Tired as he was, he had expected to sleep as soon as he had closed the curtains of his four-poster behind him; however, as soon as his head touched his pillow, he felt a strange surge of adrenaline take hold of him. He had to think of the way Ginny and Joolz had smiled at each other during practise, how often they seemed to smile at each other these days. Thinking of that seemed to hurt him. And then, of course, there was Rhonda, beaming up at Joolz whenever she had the chance. Neville would have bet the bass player was interested, too, if not in love with the guitar player. However, did Joolz reciprocate these feelings? If Neville had had a say in this, the two of them would have walked the hallways holding hands, snogging their mouths off. A Joolz enamoured with Rhonda was a Joolz who was not interested in Ginny, _his_ Ginny. He was sure that Ginny was at least _thinking_ about the handsome Ravenclaw Keeper. However, Neville had weathered the storm of Ginny being in love with Harry, and Ginny with being in love with Sirius – what did one unavailable candidate more or less count? Only if Joolz suddenly decided he fancied Ginny, things might get out of hand. Neville suppressed his feelings; jealousy would surely not help him in any way. Suddenly he envisioned the band as a jigsaw puzzle, fitting into each other musically, but also in another way. _Which way would the pieces fit in the end?_ he wondered. Couldn't Joolz just hook up with Rhonda and be done with it? For the guitar player, it seemed there was more than one option, while Neville did not even consider any option other than Ginny for himself.

And then, he thought shortly before his eyes finally grew heavy and he drifted towards sleep, there was Kay. Far too young to be entangled in the complicated net woven among the other four band members, she seemed to hold things in balance precisely by being an outsider, a bit of a misfit among the sixth years: Her presence, at first unwelcome, now something they accepted as normal and given, always reminded him that whatever else would happen among the members of that band, primarily they were meeting to play music together.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next afternoon, Neville went to look for Ginny to pick her up for their training with Professor Varlerta. As she wasn't in the common room, he asked Rhonda to look for Ginny in the dormitory; however, the bass player told him that Ginny was not in her room, either. Shrugging, Neville thanked her and walked down to Varlerta's building by himself, expecting to meet Ginny there sooner or later.

As it was, Ginny came twenty minutes late. She apologised to Professor Varlerta, saying that she had had to pose for a press photo with her family. "Promotion of family values, you know," she said, turning her eyes heavenwards. "Dad didn't want us to do it, but I suppose they made him. He said he didn't want his family involved in the elections, but everybody kept telling him it was for a good cause, so he finally gave in."

Varlerta shrugged. "I suppose I can see his point, both of them, as a matter of fact. If they publish a picture of your big and thriving family, many people will associate this with the well-being of the dwindling caste of witches and wizards. All Malfoy's got to show for himself is one son, and that son isn't even educated in Britain anymore."

Ginny sighed. "Yeah, right. We are one big and happy Weasley family, always cheerful, always healthy, and we always agree on everything. Only that Ron and Fred are ill, and nobody is supposed to know about it; and George is running a business that Mum hates, even though she supports him for Fred's sake, and George is going out with Fred's ex, and Fred doesn't even comment. Only that Percy and Dad are always arguing about Ministry stuff, and Percy thinks his father is incompetent and has to be blackmailed by mum to support him. Only that Mum doesn't really want me to play drums, and she doesn't want Bill to keep his hair long, and Bill doesn't like Charlie's new girlfriend, and Dad isn't too sure about Mum getting a job now. No problem. We are one big and happy Weasley family."

Neville stared at her, open-mouthed. He had always envied Ginny for her big family, for her friendly parents, her many siblings, and maybe even for her father who was running for Minister of Magic. He had had no idea that so many conflicts were boiling under the smooth surface of a press photograph in which everybody was exhibiting a public smile. Now he saw that Ginny's life contained more conflicts than he had thought. He felt like going over to her and putting a hand on her shoulder, but felt that this would have looked a bit silly, so he didn't.

"Two more weeks," Varlerta murmured. "I wish I knew what is going to happen. The prognoses all contradict each other, and some say that Malfoy will surely win, while others say your father's got the best of chances. I understand that you feel a bit like a hypocrite if you let them take your family picture like that, but I'm sure you want your father to win, Ginny, don't you?"

Ginny shrugged. Then she said in a small voice: "I suppose I do. I mean, I certainly wouldn't want Malfoy to win, or anybody who shares Malfoy's views." After a short pause, she continued: "I always wanted to belong to a rich and important family, you know. I remember when Ron came home from Hogwarts for his first summer holidays, he was a bit depressed because everyone else seemed to be rich at school and we weren't. I remember that he used to play with me a bit even though I was only his little sister, and we used to pretend that we both were rich and important, too." She grinned, and said to Neville: "And then my brothers brought Harry Potter home for the holidays, and goodness, I was _so_ impressed, because he really _was_ rich and important. I was such a stupid kid then." She stretched and then said: "I would have loved it back then if my Dad had suddenly become 'important', but I suppose I don't care anymore. I mean, he is important as it is, to us anyway, and I certainly don't need any people fawning over me because I'm somebody's daughter."  

Neither Neville nor Varlerta responded. Suddenly, Ginny looked a bit embarrassed. "Er, I suppose we should start Coaxing our rabbits again, shouldn't we?" she said as if to break the silence.

Varlerta nodded and opened the baskets in which she kept three fluffy, cute and extremely stubborn rabbits. Then she said softly and apparently to no one in particular:

"I really hope your father does win this election. Keranta knows, we do need a bit of support for our struggle against Voldemort. There have been repeated acts of violence again, and as you both know as members of the order, there is the threat of an overrun of Azkaban, too. We could really, really do with some support from the Ministry rather than with someone who is openly an enemy of Dumbledore and his supporters."

Neither Ginny nor Neville replied. Suddenly the teacher grinned; Neville thought that she looked very, very tired. "Listen to me," she said to them, "here I go with worrying you two again. I dare say you've got enough on your plates with our little long-eared friends here."

And with these words, she reached into the basket and handed each of her apprentices a furry bundle of rodent stubbornness.


	22. Snape

22 – Snape 

He lay naked on the cold, unevenly tiled floor as he had done for days uncountable. He hardly remembered what it was like to feel warm. They were giving him potions on a daily basis, potions which, he believed, were keeping his body alive through the tortures it was subjected to. He surely would have died of the cold if he hadn't been taking such a potion. However, even though his health did not suffer notably from the cold, he did. He felt weak and numb; the cold was robbing him even of the strength to flap his arms or jump around to keep warm. Over time, the cold had defeated his will to fight against it. Now all he did was roll up into a foetal position, a spiral wound up around a small core of clay.

When he had come to the Dark Lord's headquarters to surrender himself, they had stripped him of everything. Not only had they confiscated his wand, his trunk and his broomstick, but they had also taken every item of clothing he had had on him. Then they had thrown him into his cell in the dungeons, letting him out for questioning only. Down here, he was alone with the cold, the filth and his fear.

His body stank; his hair was greasier than ever before, and his cheeks were covered with a rough stubble for the first time in his life. The stench of his cell was unbearable: Being deprived of the last token of human dignity, the refuse bucket, he had been obliged to soil the floor. A permanent light, which reminded him of Azkaban, never let him forget where he was, and how much this place, and his own body, disgusted him. For about sixteen years, he had avoided looking at the marks on his skin, but down here, there was not much else to look at. So for many hours, he just sat there, staring at the skull and the snake protruding from its mouth. A Death Eater he had been, and a Death Eater he would once more become: Lord Voldemort had decided against killing the returned traitor at once, so when pleading for his Lord's mercy, Snape had sworn he would serve him again. If he died down here, if he died during questioning, he would die in the service of the Dark Lord.

When they questioned him, they subjected him to the Crucio curse, making him writhe and twist on the floor with unbearable pain. When he had winced enough for their liking, they asked why he had betrayed his master, and why he had returned to the Dark Lord now; they asked about Hogwarts, about Dumbledore's plans, about Harry Potter and about people trying to fight the Dark Lord. Snape told them all he knew. He told them about Dumbledore's order, and about its members. He told them that Dumbledore was cooperating with the League for Magic and Non-magic Cooperation, that there was a League Camp at Hogwarts, and that Remus Lupin and Sirius Black had escaped to the United States. He told them that Harry Potter had Countered the Icy Fingers curse in summer, and that he was learning wanded combat now. The Death Eaters questioning him took notes between curses, but they were never satisfied with his answers. They asked the same questions over and over again, particularly the one: Why, _why_ had Snape returned to the Dark Lord's service when he had been safe at Hogwarts?

Snape tried to tell them. Things were becoming difficult at Hogwarts. He had committed a couple of crimes for which they might very well have put him into Azkaban. Of course, he could have run away, but in that case, with whom could he have hidden? For him, there was nobody left to turn to. Moreover, he told them that he was trying to remain on the side of the winners. Dumbledore's star was dwindling; the Dark Lord was on the rise again. If his lord showed him mercy, it was better to be on his side once Dumbledore was defeated and Hogwarts had fallen. 

The Death Eaters wrote all of this down into their notebooks. Then they cursed him again, and Snape again told them all he remembered.

There was a cloud in his head, an impenetrable ink cloud. When he tried to gaze into it, to see what lay behind it, it seemed he was gazing into a void. It seemed he had had another reason for coming here, for going back over to the Dark Lord, but when he tried to see through the darkness in his mind, it seemed there was nothing to remember. Of course, he could recall many facts about his life, where he had been at what time, whom he had associated with, and what his profession had been, but these facts seemed lifeless and superficial to him; surely for the last sixteen years his existence could not have been that empty? He was sure there was another part of him somewhere, inaccessible, but not altogether lost; yet neither when he was alone nor when they questioned him could he retrieve any of his memories.

And yet, as he lay on the cold tiles, hugging himself without feeling any warmer, he sometimes remembered that there was a way to gaze through the cloud. Then he pulled out the small clay talisman he was hiding in the centre of his foetal position and touched it to his lips. As soon as he had played the first soft notes on the ocarina, he remembered why he had come here, and what he had left behind. The memories coming back to him were not happy ones, but at least he had the feeling of being himself again, instead of being cast into an alien body, an alien life, and being tortured for nothing. 

Why they had not found the small, strangely magical instrument on him when they had taken his clothes was a mystery to him. He had hidden it in his mouth, nearly choking on the leather cord, when they had commanded him to take his clothes off. Every minute he had expected discovery; all they had had to do was command him to speak. However, they had neither checked his mouth nor asked him any questions; they had just taken his clothes and brought him down into the dungeons of the re-erected Slytherin Mansion. In his cell, he had found a broken tile underneath which he hid the ocarina at every approach of footsteps. They had not caught him with it yet.

He did not remember the ocarina very often, and knew that was a good thing: If they ever found it, they might take it away, or worse, they might force him to play it in questioning. Yet somehow he knew it was vital that every now and then, he caught a glimpse of himself in all the fear and estrangement that made up his nightless days.

Once more, Snape heard the noise that made him lift up the broken tile and place the clay talisman underneath. When the guarding Death Eater entered, for a moment he hoped he would just be brought his daily bread, water and potion. Then he saw that the guard was not alone, and he almost threw up from fear: They were going to question him _again_.

The stranger, however, was none of the Dark Lord's standard inquisitors, but rather a tall, slim and slightly grey-haired wizard whom Snape did not recognise. Over his arm, he carried black wizard robes which he threw on Snape's naked body. Wrinkling his nose at the stench of the cell and its inmate, he commanded: 

"Put that on and follow me."

Snape pulled the robes over his body, feeling the slightly coarse material chafe his chilled skin. With some effort, he got up; due to his imprisonment and due to the Death Eaters' questioning methods, he did not find walking easy these days. However, it was a good sign that the inquisitors had not permanently maimed him so far: It showed that the Dark Lord _might_ plan to let him live.

Rather stumbling than walking, he followed the guard and the grey-haired Death Eater up two flights of stairs. He was not sure whether to feel relief or apprehension because of this: The questioning had always been done down in the dungeon, probably to prevent the screams of the tortured from disturbing any kind of important Death Eaters' meeting.  Therefore, he probably would not been subjected to standard cursing right now. However, he knew that he might have even worse to fear: Wherever the Death Eaters were bringing him, it wasn't likely that they were be taking him out for dinner. 

Faintly remembering the layout of Slytherin Mansion, Snape realised where they were going a moment before the grey-haired Death Eater opened the high, carved oak-door. This was the chamber of the Dark Lord himself, the place from which he ruled his followers and devised his plans, from which the Rising of Darkness was controlled. The large, stately room had been restored to its former splendour even in the days of the Dark Lord's first regency when the whole mansion had still been a crumbling ruin. As in its former days, the chamber was dominated by the large, carved throne of the Dark Lord standing in its centre. On the imposing gilded chair sat the Dark Lord himself. Death Eaters were kneeling at his side, waiting to do his bidding. 

He should have realised it at once, Snape thought. As the questioning sessions down in the dungeon had not yielded the expected results, the Death Eaters were taking him to be questioned by the Dark Lord himself. Probably, the Dark Lord would decide if there was anything to be gained by keeping Snape – whether he might still be of use, or whether he would be discarded onto the body pile.

While the two Death Eaters led Snape past groups of the Dark Lord's followers, he noticed people sneering and wrinkling their noses at him; many turned away. This was not only due to the fact that he was known as a traitor, Snape realised, but also due to his smell. Remembering the tactics of the Dark Lord, he guessed that this had been his prison guards' intention: As a traitor to the Dark Lord, he was supposed to appear as vile as possible. 

Snape kept his eyes down in a humble gesture; when he was pushed to the floor by the guards, he let his body go slack, hitting the marble flooring in a jumble of limbs. This was no great effort, as exhaustion and fear made him weak. Now the Dark Lord would decide over his fate. As soon as he could regain mastery of his body, he scrambled to kneel before the throne.

"My lord, I beg you to forgive me my past crimes, and to let me serve you again," he said, his eyes on the floor.

"Snape the traitor has returned to me," the Dark Lord hissed with false sweetness, his voice high and piercing. "Betraying me has not become you well, Severus."

Around him, the Death Eaters snickered and, once more, wrinkled their noses at him. The strategy of the Dark Lord was working – the immortal wizard knew what he was doing, even though he did not feel disgust as mortals did: From the time in his service, Snape knew that the Dark Lord had had to sacrifice his sense of aesthetics for becoming immortal, because only humans thought and felt in terms of beautiful and ugly, of disgusting and appealing. Therefore, the disgusting smell of Snape's body would only be marked by his intellect without awakening any kind of emotion. That did not mean, of course, that the Dark Lord was unaware of what _others_ found disgusting, knowledge he used to his best advantage.

Snape remained kneeling on the cold marble floor, waiting for the Dark Lord to decide what to do next. He knew better than to speak out of turn or to defend himself. The Dark Lord liked his servants to whimper and to plead, but only at his command, only when it suited him. If he wanted Snape to humiliate himself further in front of everybody else, he would give him a gentle hint like putting him under a _Crucio_ curse or cutting off one of his limbs.

"I will have the truth now," Voldemort said. "Questioning you seems of little use, so I will use other means to find out to what end you have returned to me."

Tentatively, Snape gazed up to see what these means might be; he felt fear rising in him as he saw Voldemort beckon one of his Death Eaters towards him with the tiniest movement of his finger.

Snape recognised Goyle who had gone to school with him. The wizard was carrying a small vial; stopping in front of the kneeling Snape, he shoved it into his trembling hands. "Drink," he tried to snarl – he had never quite mastered the art of snarling like other Death Eaters had.

Snape opened the vial and managed to catch a faint whiff of its odour before he raised it to his lips. _Veritaserum_, he realised, rather crudely made if he was not mistaken. Perhaps this was why they had let him live so far – he wasn't sure what had become of Avery, but maybe the Dark Lord was lacking a skilled Potions master.

As soon as the potion touched his palate, the world around Snape started to change its hue. The hard floor beneath his knees seemed softened; the ache of his body receded. When he looked back at his lord, Snape saw the Light of Truth shining around him, and he knew he would now free his mind of the burden of secrecy. He would tell the Dark Lord _everything_.

"Severus Snape, why did you betray me sixteen years ago?" the terrible, high-pitched voice of his master asked.

"I betrayed you because of a woman, because she asked me to, my lord," Snape replied truthfully.

"A _woman_?" the Dark Lord enquired, incredulous. "What kind of woman would want you to betray me?"

Snape swallowed, knowing that his master would not like his answer, but as truth was a virtue, he revealed what he knew. "Your daughter, my lord. She was at Hogwarts with me for a time, and later went on to become an Auror. When she caught me during a raid, she persuaded me to spy on you. I have regretted my betrayal of you many times, my lord, and beg for your forgiveness."

His master was apparently fuming, though he did not reply immediately. The existence of his daughter appeared not to be a subject many dared to mention around the Dark Lord. Snape waited patiently until his lord asked him another question.

"And this – this _woman_ persuaded you to turn against me?" the Dark Lord almost screeched now.

"Yes, my lord," Snape answered.

"And what did she offer you for your betrayal of me?" the Dark Lord hissed, his red eyes closing to slits, in which the slit-like pupils became mere dots.

Snape shrugged, because he wasn't quite sure himself. "I thought she was offering me her body and her love, but she disappeared before she could fulfil such a promise. I waited for her to return, but she never did."

The Dark Lord's flat-nosed, white face drew up into a smirk. "So she betrayed you, too?" he asked, sounding satisfied.

"Yes, my lord, she did," Snape confirmed.

"Why did you return to me now?" the Dark Lord asked. "You are not stupid enough to think I will not punish you for your transgressions."

"I expect your punishment, my lord, because I know I deserve it. I do not ask you to spare me, but I ask you to let me live so I can serve you again and make up for my past crimes against you. I returned to you because I regret my past actions, and because I know your star is rising, while the star of your opponents is sinking. I believe you will conquer the world this time, and I would much rather give myself up to you out of free will and hope for your forgiveness than wait for you to catch me when you defeat Hogwarts," Snape answered, telling nothing but the truth.

The Dark Lord drew up the left part of his eyebrowless forehead. "Is that all, or is there another reason, too?" he edged Snape on.

"There is, my lord," Snape admitted, prepared to tell the whole truth now. "There is something I desire to own which your opponents will not give me, but which may be in your power to grant me one day if I serve you faithfully, if I earn it."

"Which is?" the Dark Lord needled him on.

"Your daughter, my lord," Snape replied truthfully.

For a few moments, the chamber of the Dark Lord fell into absolute silence. Snape knew that his audacious honesty, though potion-induced, might well cost him his life. He looked up at his master, waiting for him to strike.

"My daughter, _again_?" the Dark Lord said, disgust in his high-pitched voice. 

"Yes, my lord," Snape confirmed, disregarding the snickers of the Death Eaters surrounding him. Each one of them was only waiting to do the Dark Lord's bidding and torture him to death, he knew.

"Oh, aren't we smart," the Dark Lord sneered. "You want to mate with my daughter in the hope of impregnating her so that you son will be my successor."

"No, my lord," honesty compelled Snape to object. "As you are immortal, you will never need a successor. I just desire to have your daughter for my own, to get what she once promised to me."

"How very sweet," the Dark Lord snapped. Dutifully, the Death Eaters laughed. "And how very presumptive of you, considering that you are a traitor and have come here to receive your punishment. _If_ I let you live now, and if you prove worthy to be my servant again after all your treachery, this does not mean that I will reward you with anything more valuable than your own contemptible and meaningless life."

"Of course, my lord," Snape replied politely. "However, if you give me a chance, I will prove to you that I can make up for my past errors. Maybe I even can prove to you that I am worthy to receive from your hands what I desire."

The Dark Lord emitted a shrill sound which remotely resembled a laugh. "This remains to be proven, indeed, and although I do not intend to make it easy for you, it is not absolutely out of question that one day, I may decide to grant a wish like yours to someone. But I am sure you know that once I catch my daughter, I will punish her severely for her treachery. She will not be as pretty as she is rumoured to be once my Death Eaters are done with her – _all_ of my Death Eaters," he added, gaining roaring laughter from his followers.

"I am aware of this, and I accept it," Snape replied. "Evilness knows her haughtiness can do with some humiliation."

The Dark Lord did not respond for a moment. Holding their breath, all the wizards in the room were waiting for him to speak. Snape himself felt that some kind of judgement was forming in his lord's mind: He would decide whether or not he would let Snape live for now.

"Take him to the potion dungeon, where he can make himself useful," the Dark Lord decreed. "Do not let him out of sight; until he proves to be worthy, he is my prisoner. But before he gets to work, clean him up, because he is filthy."

Everybody laughed once more; Snape felt the stench of his body sting in his nose more than ever. If he was ever accepted back into the circle of the Death Eaters, he would be reminded of this moment every single day. But for now, he turned his face to his lord, and said, like every good servant would:

"My lord, I thank you for my life. All my efforts will now be directed in repaying you your generosity."

Again, the Dark Lord replied with his high-pitched laugh. "Do not think your punishment is over, Severus. Whatever you do to please me, your punishment will never be over. _Crucio_!"

And from the wand of the Dark Lord shot a pain that had Snape writhing on the floor again, screaming for mercy as flames of torture seemed to devour his body. The Dark Lord did not remove the curse for a long, long time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When permitted to go and clean himself up, Snape crawled out of the room rather than walked. Waves of flashback pain still flooded his body at irregular intervals, and the long days spent in his dungeon cell had weakened his constitution. The tall, grey-haired Death Eater who had brought him to the Dark Lord's chamber now led him to a washroom where Snape had a long, long shower. He scrubbed the filth and the smell off his body, washed his hair and shaved. Cleaned up, he felt considerably better, even though his body and mind ached for sleep. After putting on the clean robes he had been given, he regarded himself in the mirror and thought he looked almost human again. Only the hair was still a bit greasy, because he had only had normal shampoo, not Roary's magical shampoo. For a fleeting moment, he wondered who Roary was, but as he only hit the ink cloud in his mind, he left the question unsolved. Then his eyes strayed back to his black-robed chest. There was something missing, an item he felt he should have on him but which he did not have, but, with regard to the other problems at hand, he let matters slip from his mind.

Outside, the grey-haired Death Eater was sitting on a chair, reading the _Daily Prophet_. When Snape came through the door, his round and generally friendly face broke into a grin.

"Ah – so you _are_ human, after all," he said.

Snape nodded, spending much effort on holding himself erect. He did not want the other one to see his exhaustion and pain, his weakness. Although he was craving sleep, he knew he would probably have to work a full shift in the potions dungeon before he would be permitted to close his eyes.

"Okay, let's go to our workplace," the Death Eater said. 

Snape nodded again, unsure whether he would be able to speak coherently. Moreover, there was nothing more to say; he would simply obey the other one, as he did not have much choice.

Following the Death Eater was not easy, for he walked at a brisk pace, and Snape's feet hurt. Somehow, all the pain in his body seemed to slip down into his lower limbs, which consequently refused to obey his mind's commands. His knees buckled, and his ankles complained with every single step. Snape tried not to let it show, but fell behind until the Death Eater stopped and waited for him. Humiliated, Snape trudged on, doing his best to catch up.

Finally they had reached the potions dungeon, a spacey underground laboratory which seemed very well equipped, at least to Snape's first cursory glance. Bracing himself against the doorframe and trying hard not to let his speech slur, Snape asked: 

"All right, on which potions do you want me to work first?"

The Death Eater let his gaze slip over Snape's trembling body, and then looked him directly in the face.

"I cannot let you work on potions when you are in such a state. You would probably ruin every potion and waste precious ingredients. I suggest you take some time to rest before you undertake any attempt to work. There is a cot in the supplies room," he said and pointed to a door at the far end of the room. 

Snape returned the other's gaze. He felt incredibly grateful. "Thank you," he said.

The Death Eater nodded. "No problem. I suppose we should try to get along, as we will work together. My duty here is potion-making since Avery died of a Countered curse last summer.  Unfortunately, I have never continued my studies beyond my potions NEWT, so I will be grateful to learn things from you. Of course, you are also my responsibility, because the Dark Lord has decreed that you are not to leave the building unless under his command. However, as long as you do not give me any trouble, I do not see why I should give you more trouble than necessary." 

In an odd way, this made sense, Snape thought. He attempted a smile and thanked the Death Eater again. The wizard stretched out a hand for Snape to shake it; Snape took it. The hand felt cool and dry in his.

"I know your name, so I suppose you should know mine, too," the Death Eater said. "My name is Evnissyen Dumbledore."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Compared to the hardships he had experienced in his underground cell, Snape found his duties in the potions dungeon quite easy to bear. Evnissyen had drawn up a 'to do-list' for them; once Snape had woken from almost seven hours of solid sleep, he started working on it. He checked which ingredients were in store, and which had to be ordered. Then he drew up a schedule for potion making, taking into account the amount of time required for each potion, but also whether it was urgently needed and whether he had all the ingredients for it. This accomplished, he started to work at his normal pace, leaving Evnissyen to stare at him in awe. By noon of the next day, he had enrolled the other Death Eater as a fulltime assistant and apprentice. Normally, Snape hated working together with any other person, but as Evnissyen proved eager, mentally acute and sufficiently knowledgeable, Snape soon found he did not mind having him around. 

At lunchtime, the two of them joined the other Death Eaters in the overlarge dining hall of Slytherin Mansion. All in all, Snape counted about sixty wizards seated at two long tables, their hoods drawn back to reveal their curious stares at the traitor who had returned to the Dark Lord and had been permitted to live. There were a few faces Snape recognised, but most of them were unknown to him. Of course, he had not known every Death Eater even when he had been one of them: Fearing treachery, the Dark Lord had not encouraged Death Eaters to know each other any better than it was necessary. Evnissyen, Snape's senior by a couple of years, had served the Dark Lord long before him, but Snape had never met Dumbledore's renegade son before.

One of the Death Eaters Snape recognised at once was Lucius Malfoy, of course. Tall, silver-blond and impeccably dressed, he looked the true wizard aristocrat among the Dark Lord's followers, someone who casually dropped in every now and then as a special favour. After Snape had taken his meal, the first real food he had been given in a long time, Malfoy walked up to him. Standing tall next to the seated Snape, his well-tailored, drawn-back hood broadening his shoulders, he looked more imposing than ever.

"Severus, my friend, how pleasant to see you alive after all your treachery," Malfoy said with false sweetness.

Snape knew that his life was still hanging by a thin thread, and that Malfoy's words had always counted a lot with the Dark Lord. 

"How pleasant to see you are getting ahead in life, sir," he responded meekly. "I congratulate you on probably becoming our next Minister of Magic."

Malfoy scowled; idly, Snape wondered whether his chances of being elected into this office were maybe smaller than many people thought. To mollify him, he added: "You must tell me of your son's success at Durmstrang some time."

Malfoy stared at him for a moment, then abruptly turned on his heel and left. It scared Snape slightly, as he did not know what he had done wrong. Turning to Evnissyen, he saw the other Death Eater raise his eyebrows at him. Somehow he got the feeling there was something to know here, something Evnissyen was familiar with, but he did not dare to ask.

After lunch, Snape dug into his work again. He managed to complete two complex poisons and to fill a set of vials with each. Then he set to work on an Exploding Lotion, a popular potion used for killing people from a distance. Moreover, he prepared some ingredients which had to simmer for a couple of weeks, or which had to rest over night after cooling.  Evnissyen helped him considerably and for some reason asked intelligent questions only. 

While he was working, Snape did not manage to chase away a nagging, slightly unpleasant thought. He had forgotten something, or lost something. He did not quite remember what it was, but had the uncomfortable impression that it was something important. However, as he could not recall what this important thing might be, he left matters until he would remember. 

Snape and Evnissyen kept up their work on the potion over the next couple of days. Snape was almost content to work with the other one, as he found him fairly easy-going: Somehow, the two wizards appeared to have signed an unwritten contract that unless it was necessary, neither would boss the other one around. Evnissyen never insisted on keeping any kind of close tabs on Snape as long as he was within eyesight. Realising he was treated well, Snape tried to repay this by for once being a patient teacher in return. Evnissyen facilitated this by being quick, exact and intelligent and by asking Snape's advice in a way which suggested that overall, they were on one level, that there was no need for hierarchy between them. 

Snape found working in the potions dungeon almost pleasant, almost peaceful: Evnissyen and he kept up a daily routine which suited him well. In a way, it was almost like being on holiday, because that's what he had always done in the blissful time of the summer holidays when there were no students around: He had spent his hours in soothing solitude, brewing potions, doing the work he loved. However, just as Snape knew each summer that the holidays were doomed to end one day, he was sure that life would not go on like this forever. His time in the potions dungeon was the calm before the storm rather than a permanent solution. The Dark Lord was observing his behaviour; he was sure that Evnissyen was reporting Snape's conduct to him. Sooner or later the Dark Lord would decide whether to keep Snape or to get rid of him. If he kept Snape, he had to decide whether to permanently keep him as a prisoner in the potions dungeons or whether to trust him again, to accept him back into the rank of a Death Eater. Although something cowardly within Snape hoped he could stay in the dungeon, he knew he had returned to his lord to become a Death Eater once more, and to do his lord's bidding wherever he was sent.

One day, Evnissyen returned to the dungeon; as he did now and then, he had locked Snape in to go after his own business, perhaps to speak to the Dark Lord. 

"I'm sorry, but they are going to question you again, partner," he said to Snape.

An icy lump of fear formed in Snape's stomach, as always when he knew he could expect torture. For a moment, he felt the idiotic desire to plead with Evnissyen to protect him, but he knew that would have been useless. It was nice of his guard and work partner to show sympathy when Snape was fetched for inquisition, but it would have been out of place to expect anything more of him. Therefore, he quietly finished his task of counting flies' legs, jotted down their number in the inventory and put his things away. Then he said: "I am ready."

Evnissyen raised an eyebrow at him. "You seem to be bearing it quite well, partner," he said.

Snape shrugged. He willed his mind not to think of the torture he feared, and managed to reply almost evenly: "Well, it's certainly not that I would not mind it, but I suppose it is to be expected that I am being questioned. Therefore, there is no use for any kind of complaints."

Evnissyen gave him a piercing look, but did not say anything. A few minutes later, the Death Eaters entrusted with the task of questioning victims came and took him down into the torture chamber.

Once more, they put him under the Crucio curse. Snape writhed and screamed; he twitched and twisted madly on the floor, tearing his robes and chafing his skin. His muscles cramped up, adding the current Crucio curse to the pain accumulated in past questionings. All the time, he pleaded with his torturers to lift the curse; he would tell them everything. For a few minutes, they lifted the curse to let him speak, promising he would not be cursed again if he came up with something new. Snape told them about Dumbledore's order, about the League Camp and about Sirius Black; he told him about the Dark Lord's daughter, and that he, Snape had returned to the Dark Lord because he hoped to finally win her this way, be she willing or not. Unfortunately, none of these things were new, so they subjected him to three more rounds of cursing until they gave up. Then they accompanied him back to the potions dungeon. Snape tried his best to walk upright. His sense of direction had been temporarily disturbed, and he saw the world as a kind of blur, so every now and then, one of his torturers had to give him a little shove in the right direction. Finally, they pushed him through the door of his work place. Snape fell flat on his face. He was not entirely sure where he was, but was glad when he heard the door slam behind him: They were gone.

Numb as he was, it took him some time to realise that someone had grabbed him under his arms and was pulling him across the room. He tried to see where he was being taken, but his eyes would not focus properly. Then he felt his back slip onto the cot, felt his legs being dragged up. Then blackness surrounded him.

When he came to, he found himself on the cot in the supplies room once more. His whole body ached; his mouth was parched. At first the room spun around him, but after a while, the walls settled back into their place.

Looking around with eyes that felt as if they had been torn out of his head and then bewitched back inside, he found a full glass of water on the floor, placed next to an empty bucket for vomiting. With trembling hands, he reached for the glass and managed to spill only a third of its content. Greedily he drained it. Then he took deep, slow breaths, willing his mind to clear. 

"Do you want more?" Evnissyen must have heard him, because he was standing in the doorway. 

Snape nodded. Most of all, he wanted the pain to recede. "Anaesthese Potion," he croaked, wondering if Evnissyen would comply with his plead. He was probably not permitted to give Snape something to ease his pain. Nevertheless, Evnissyen returned to the supplies room with a bottle of water and a vial holding the freshly brewed, emerald green potion. He let five green drops fall into Snape's glass, filled it up with water and handed it over. Again, Snape drank as one dying of thirst, this time without spilling a single drop. Evnissyen remained crouching by his cot until Snape felt better a few minutes later.

"The Dark Lord wants to see you as soon as you wake up," he finally said. "You will be subjected to _Veritaserum_ again, this time the stuff we made, he said." 

Snape realised that Evnissyen was warning him, maybe even offering his help. Compared with the _Veritaserum_ he had been given before, the one they had recently brewed was much stronger. Of course, what could Evnissyen do? He could, of course, give the Dark Lord forged _Veritaserum_ for Snape, thereby endangering his own life. He was not sure what to answer his partner. Was he really offering to risk his life for Snape, or were his words nothing but a trap?

"Give him our best potion then," he replied. "Whether or not the Dark Lord decrees that I must die is out of my hands. However, as far as the truth is concerned, I have nothing to fear. I have told him the truth, and will do so again even if subjected to the strongest _Veritaserum_ there is. I have told him all I know." 


	23. Aisha

23 – Aisha 

"Remus?" Aisha knocked tentatively. "Remus, are you in there?"

For a couple of seconds, nothing happened; Aisha decided to return to her room. Either the wizard wasn't in his quarters, or he did not want to see her, something she had often experienced with men she fancied. Just as she turned around, he opened.

"Aisha," he said with the smile she found so striking and held the door ajar for her. She slipped inside, willing her heart to stop beating so frantically. _So he smiled_, she told it, _but now get a grip on yourself, heart._

Remus Lupin filled a small kettle with water and hung it over the open fireplace. He put some tealeaves into his chipped teapot and fetched two cups from his shelf. Invited by a movement of his hand, Aisha sat down on his fluffy, battered armchair, leaving the hard-backed chair for him to sit on.

"It's nice that you're coming to visit me here," he said. "I do get a bit lonely sometimes, and it's not nice never to be able to go out." Once more, Aisha was dazzled by his faint smile.

"How are you? How did today's Muggle Studies lessons go?"

Aisha shrugged. "Not too bad. Pat and I had a particularly strange lesson trying to teach the fourth years what Muggle religion was all about – you know, what it was for and which different kinds there were. Generally speaking, in which part of the world you can find which religions, and how all of this influences our society. I think we really confused our students. It seems to me they tend to think we Muggles are all alike, a homogeneous group of deprived and therefore simple-minded and noncomplex people. They seem to have no clear idea of how countries differ from each other. I mean, they know that other countries exist, and that in other countries, there are wizards and Muggles, too. They also are aware of other customs existing in other countries – for example, they said they once had a group of French students here and the French ate really strange food. But otherwise –" she shrugged. "To me it seems that they know very little of the world."

Lupin sighed. "Witches and wizards travel too little, and they care too little about international affairs. Over the centuries, they have more or less preserved an attitude of 'leave my Muggles alone, and I'll leave your Muggles alone,' if you know what I mean. It's a thing that really should be changed. We should give our students the chance to see a bit of the world so they know there's more to it than just the bit they know. In a way, they are like some of these American kids who only have a vague idea that besides theirs, there's some more continents in this world."

"So you got a chance to meet some American high school students?" Aisha said, grinning to herself as she imagined Remus Lupin chatting with American teenagers.

"Oh, sure – I mean, er, no, not really," Lupin replied, blushing slightly. "I mean, I was only in the country for a couple of weeks, and most of the time, Sirius and I were hiding – just as I am now," he added with a sigh.

"It's the first time you ever left the country," Aisha stated, asking for confirmation.

Lupin nodded. "True. As a werewolf, I was never permitted to cross the boarders of Britain, which is a pity, as I always wanted to travel."

"And the one time you left the country illegally, you returned so soon," she said, shaking her head in confusion. "Do you regret it? I mean, you haven't had much chance to look for that Pettigrew guy yet, have you?" He had told her all about the crimes of Pettigrew, the spy, and about his friends James and Lily who had died because of him.

Lupin sighed. "They don't really let me out, you know," he said. "They even confiscated Harry's Invisibility Cloak and gave it back to him, so I can't get out. I suppose it's all for my own safety, but –" he shrugged, "sitting around here is not really the reason why I came back to this country."

"This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Is there anything I can do for you?" Aisha found herself asking. 

"Like – getting the Cloak back for me?" There was a brief gleam in Lupin's eyes, but it was replaced by a benevolent smile. "I can't ask something like that from you, Aisha. Remember, they are all witches and wizards here, and you are just a Muggle. The whole castle is full of magic – magic staircases, magic doors with magic locks. You wouldn't stand a chance if you tried to steal the Cloak from Harry."

Aisha hadn't been aware of offering to steal the Cloak for Lupin up to that moment. Now however, as the look he gave her made her feel all warm inside, the decision formed inside her mind: She would try to get hold of the Cloak for him if she had a chance. She might be _just a Muggle_, but that didn't mean she wasn't resourceful. However, she kept her thoughts to herself, deciding that if she managed to get the Cloak for him, it was going to be a surprise.

To keep her thoughts silent, she changed the subject to the first thing that came to her mind: "So what do you think of the elections? The whole castle seems to be talking about hardly anything else." 

Lupin grinned crookedly. "I suppose I think what everybody else thinks. There is their candidate, Lucius Malfoy, who is positively evil, and our candidate, Arthur Weasley. Apparently, nobody else dared running for the office, as the options are limited: Either Magical Britain fights the Dark Lord, or it supports him in his evil plans to throw the country or even the world into a state of Darwinist anarchy, as you Muggles would say. You see, the old Minister of Magic, in whose death I played such an unfortunate role, had adapted some kind of middle position: Let's turn a blind eye and pretend nothing is happening. If you ask me, he was imitating the behaviour of a toddler who thinks that if he hides his eyes, the trouble will go away. Now, I suppose, people have accepted that there is not going to be a middle position anymore. I personally believe we are heading for open war, a kind of civic guerrilla war in which witches and wizards will kill each other in large numbers. The only question is who is on which side, and which side will consequently prove to be stronger. The upcoming election will be a first indication of the things to come: If Weasley wins, this means that the majority of witches and wizards are willing to make some kind of stand against the Dark Lord. It does not mean that they are all willing to risk their lives in fighting him, but it is a good sign. If Malfoy wins, we know we have a problem, not only because we know how things stand with the magical population of Britain, but also because as Minister of Magic, Malfoy would have access to many resources which could be turned against us."

Aisha had huddled in her armchair, listening to his small speech with a mixture of fascination and dread. Wizard politics made her feel slightly dizzy. In comparison to the electoral system of her own country, everything was so much more direct, and so much more obviously a matter of life and death. Surely matters couldn't be that simple?

"So to which parties do the two of them belong?" she asked.

Lupin leant back in his chair, assuming a position that Aisha would have called a lecturing posture. Then he shook his head. "We don't have political parties in Magical Britain, at least not in the sense that Muggles do. As the magical community is a relatively small one, everyone knows more or less where the other witches and wizards stand in matters of views and opinions. Malfoy does not have to belong to a party to let others know that he is pro pure-bloodedness, against Muggle protection laws, against cooperation with Muggles, and that he probably supports the Dark Lord. The same is true for Arthur Weasley: We all know what kind of job he is doing, what kind of people he associates with, which views he holds, and that he is on Dumbledore's side."

"But –" Aisha was thinking about the political system she knew, "surely a Minister of Magic does not rule on his own, does he? He must have other ministers who form a government with him. Who will they be if there is no party from which the Minister can take his officials?"

"Well, that's not exactly how it works," Lupin said. "If Weasley makes it into the office, he will be head of the Ministry of Magic. The people working at the Ministry do not officially belong to any party or interest group, either. The purpose of the Ministry is to protect witches and wizards from Muggles through secrecy, to keep international magic relations on cooperative terms, and to organise magic society through laws. The idea behind it is that witches and wizards are a homogeneous group who, generally speaking, share the same views, opinions and interests. Of course, this is not always the case. There are rich and poor wizards, pure-blooded and half-blooded wizards, and there are differences of opinion, for example regarding the treatment of Muggles."

The profusion of new information dazzled Aisha; however, one thing struck her as particularly strange.

"Why do you need protection from Muggles? I mean, with all your magical powers, are you _afraid_ of Muggles?"

Lupin shrugged. "I suppose so. For one thing, there are far more Muggles than witches and wizards. Of course, that did not scare us in the past, but over the last few decades, things have changed. We used to rule the Muggles in the past, through medieval times and, in a way, also during the last centuries. It was the Industrial Revolution that really diminished wizard power in Europe, and in the States – well, things were different there to start with. For one thing, through technology, Muggles learned to do many things that used to be the prerogatives of wizards. Not only did they produce large numbers of goods, but they also learned to bridge space through transportation and communication technology. I sometimes wonder why witches and wizards did not stop the technological development of Muggle power. I suppose that at first, they did not take it seriously, and then suddenly it was too late. Now it's not only that Muggles are no longer afraid of their former wizard rulers; we even have to worry about the things that might happen if Muggles knew about us. With all their technology, particularly their modern weapons, they might get us into their powers and exploit us if they knew about us."

Fascinated, Aisha listened to him. Then she asked: "Is that the reason why Muggles burned witches in medieval times – because they tried to rule them?"

Lupin shook his head. "Witch burning was never particularly effective, because we can protect ourselves against fire and the like. Also, we are talking about a big power struggle between the Muggle church and the wizard rulers. Today, things are different. Individual Muggles might have a hard time imprisoning and keeping hold of wizards, of trying to make them do things for them. However, if large and powerful Muggles decided to stick together, trying to dominate us, they might resort to means such as war and destruction. Even if they did not manage to rule us, they would destroy our world. This is why we do not want Muggles to know that we exist."

"But why should Muggles – why should we make war on you?" Aisha asked, remembering that in the conflict he described, Lupin and she were on different, maybe even opposing sides.

Lupin smiled at her remark, perhaps noticing her use of the word '_we_'. "Oh, you might want us to solve your problems, you know – get rid of pollution, feed the hungry, extinguish diseases, maybe even pacify parts of the world where the deprived and exploited fight against each other."

Aisha was awed. "Could you do that?" she asked.

Lupin shrugged. "I suppose so, at least partially. Today, the Muggle world has so many problems that you can't solve them just by a flick of your wand. Magic does not work that way; it was never a power that easily functions on a large scale, but rather the power an individual exacts in an individual situation. However, if many or even all witches and wizards worked together and really devoted their time and powers to it, we might be able to fix a few things."

"Why don't you, then?" Aisha inquired, uncomprehending. Watching the news on TV always made her feel small, insignificant and, most of all, helpless. If she had seen it within her powers to really make a difference, she would have given up many things to do so, maybe even her music. However, as she had the feeling that most political activists mostly struggled against windmills or fought among themselves, she had never really felt that she should find herself a place among them. Still, her lack of ability to change things had always frustrated her. Now that she heard Lupin speak, her wish to have been born a witch, to have the power to change things, was stronger than ever.

After hesitating briefly, Lupin answered: "You see, things are not that easy. Many wizards believe that as Muggles have created these problems, they should solve them on their own, too. Of course, we share the same world, so many of the problems are our problems, too. However, if I look at Muggles I have the impression that many of them do not seem to worry very much about things like pollution, famines or war, either. I suppose that on both sides, people tend to look away and to care mostly about their own wealth and happiness. There are a couple of people who believe we should solve the Muggles' problems – people like the League for example. Others think the League are just a bunch of dangerous madmen. You see, we are far from united."

Aisha pondered that for a moment. After sipping at her tea, she asked: "And where do you stand?"

Lupin hesitated; then he sat up in his chair and said quite quickly: "I am with Dumbledore, of course."

"And where exactly does Dumbledore stand?" Aisha asked.

Lupin leant back again. "First of all, Dumbledore opposes the Dark Lord and his realm of terror. He believes that Muggles and wizards should live in peace with each other, maybe cooperate, too, but he's not a radical like the League members. He believes in the Statute of Secrecy, not in the League's idea that we should openly declare our powers and offer the Muggles our assistance. I second that, because I believe it would end in disaster if the Muggles knew the truth."

"I know the truth," Aisha reminded him. "Does this mean you have to modify my memory now?"

The lines around Lupin's eyes creased into a smile. "No, I won't. You are a friend of Roary and Varlerta, and I suppose the two of them pick their friends with care. You have known about us for a while, and as far as I know, you have not gone to any Muggle paper to yell your head off about what you saw. There have always been Muggles in whom witches and wizards have put their trust – sometimes our friends, sometimes our spouses, and of course the close family of Muggle-born witches and wizards. Therefore, the system has always been on shaky ground; however, as long as only a few people believe in our existence, individuals do not have much chance to endanger us. Over centuries, we have made sure that Muggles accuse each other of superstition or even madness in case some of them claim to have seen magic. If there are some occasional reports in the paper, _sensible_ Muggles will believe it's all rubbish, right?"

Aisha nodded. "Well, you do your best to keep us ignorant and stupid, I suppose," she said, noticing the slightly bitter edge in her own voice. To soften it, she added: "I suppose if Voldemort came to rule the world, our lot would be much worse."

She thought that Lupin flinched at her use of the name, but maybe she had only imagined it. "No one knows exactly whether the Dark Lord is really seeking world dominance," he replied. "If he attempted to gain it, this would mean terrible war, and terrible bloodshed. Maybe that is what he wants, though – to cause as much chaos as he can, and to thrive on the sufferings of others."

"We have to stop him, then," Aisha said quietly. "Do you think we stand a chance?"

Lupin sat up and reached across the small table; he stroked across the tips of Aisha's short, shaved spikes of hair. Expecting his touch, Aisha felt a shiver run down her spine.

"We'll do our best, my brave little Muggle," he said, smiling, and withdrew his hand again.

Aisha did not appreciate being called '_little'_, but the affection in his voice let the heat rise to her face. She felt she had to excuse herself quickly before she might do or say something stupid. Making a show of looking at her wristwatch, she said: "I think I have to go to band practise now." The truth was that she still had half an hour until band practise, but she felt she had to collect herself a bit for it.

"That's a pity," Lupin said. "Will you come back to visit me again soon, or will you leave me up here in my prison?" He winked at her; to Aisha, it almost seemed as if he was flirting with her.

"Sure," she replied, her mouth suddenly dry. He wanted to see her again! He seemed to like her! Aisha decided it was really time to leave now, or she would definitely say or do something stupid. Guys always got to her like that, and often they knew how much she liked them far too early. She did not want to be easy prey yet again, especially not for a wizard. Therefore, she rose and put a hand on the doorknob. 

"I will be back tomorrow," she told him.

"I'd like that," he said, touching her sleeved arm very slightly with his hand as a parting gesture.

With a last nod to him, Aisha opened the door. When she saw a student of Hogwarts pass, a girl in the school uniform robes, she started; Lupin's presence was supposed to be kept top secret. However, as the girl turned and saw Lupin, she smiled; before Aisha could close the door on her, the girl whispered:

"Professor Lupin! It's so good to see you are alright!"

Lupin hesitated for a moment, then he whispered back: "Hermione – it's good to see _you_." However, he raised a finger to his lips, and then closed the door.

Hermione – that had to be the girl Ginny had told her about, Aisha realised – the girl studying a medieval branch of magic in the laboratory next door to Lupin's quarters, the girl who wanted to help Ginny's brothers. As far as she knew, Hermione was someone to be trusted. Relieved, Aisha nodded a greeting to the robed student and then walked off to her own room to calm down her frantically beating heart.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The words '_my brave Muggle'_ never seemed to leave Aisha's mind during the night; she realised she was longing to hear them again. She wanted Lupin to look at her with pride in his eyes, wanted him to see her as his equal. The best way to achieve this, she thought, was to do what he thought beyond her capacities – to bring him back his Invisibility Cloak. Lying awake, she wondered how she could lay her hands on this item. Surely Harry, a school boy with nothing much to worry about except his grades, would not need the Cloak as badly as Lupin did, who was wanted by the Ministry for murder, she reasoned to justify her plan to herself.

If they had given the Cloak back to Harry Potter, it would be up the boys' dormitory in Gryffindor Tower, she thought, remembering what Ginny had told her about the accommodations of the House of Gryffindor. As a non-student and Muggle, she was, of course, not admitted to that place. However, there had to be a way to get in there and steal the Cloak. 

Since she had left the safety of her parents' home, Aisha had done many underpaid and unpleasant jobs, cleaning other people's houses being one of them. It was probably her past experience that left her to wonder who did the cleaning in Gryffindor Tower, and if she could offer her assistance to them as a means of getting into the dormitory. Of course, she would have to watch it; if she helped out the cleaning squad just one time, which coincided with the disappearance of a rare magical item, people might get suspicious. However, she had the impression that witches and wizards did not think her capable of much. If she was careful, she might get away with such a stunt.

The next day, she visited Lupin again. They had a nice chat, but he did not say '_my brave Muggle'_ to her. Neither did he touch her or attempt to get close to her in any other way. When she left him to give Ginny her weekly drums lesson, she felt strangely empty. 

After the drums lesson, Aisha remarked that for a band room, the unused classroom was extremely clean; casually, she asked who was doing the maintenance around the castle.

"House-elves," Ginny replied while packing her drumsticks into her bag.

"House-elves?" Aisha echoed, but then she nodded. If they cooked all the food for the school, it made sense that they did the cleaning, too. "Well, they do a good job cleaning up after you lot, with all the empty Butterbeer bottles and everything." Aisha suppressed a shudder. Why anyone would drink something as obnoxious as Butterbeer was beyond her comprehension.

"Well, I've got to go," Ginny said; she usually met with Varlerta and Neville for their training after her drum lessons. Aisha and the girl exchanged nods of parting.

Alone in the practise room of Ginny's still nameless band, Aisha idly practised a couple of rolls, wondering whether the house-elves cleaning squad might be her ticket into Gryffindor Tower. How could she persuade them to accept her company? 'Can I come with you now and then to help you clean up the castle?' Such a request would sound more than suspicious. The couple of times she had gone down to the kitchen, the house-elves had been kind and sympathetic to her, had given her food and had eagerly learned new recipes from Pat and her. It would be much easier to receive the house-elves' aid than to help them, Aisha decided, running an idle finger along the rim of Ginny's snare-drum.

Things looked a bit hopeless. The only thing Aisha had going for her was the fact that house-elves knew very little about Muggles. Could she fake any weird kind of custom for them? Claim to be a compulsive cleaner? Claim she was feeling a strong urge to clean Gryffindor Tower due to a strange Muggle holiday, a strange Muggle hormone change? Claim that as a non-witch, she bore a secret resemblance to house-elves which obliged her to clean at their sides? Aisha shook her head; it all sounded much too far-fetched to be even remotely credible.

Aisha returned to her rolls. Drowning her mind in the complex challenge of movement and sound, she forgot about house-elves, Cloaks and imprisoned wizards for a little while. First she practised short rolls, embedded in a simple rhythmic pattern; then she held out the rolls as long as she could keep them regular, trying to keep them up just a little longer each time, just another four strokes played as one, and another four strokes. When she felt the first, still pleasant signs of exhaustion, she stopped. After dutifully cleaning up the wooden drumstick fragments from Ginny's snare-drum, she got up to return to her own room. The idea hit her unexpectedly, and Aisha almost laughed out loud. Yes, this way she might be able to fool the house-elves into letting her do what she wanted.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aisha timed her visit to the kitchen well. Selecting the pre-dinner period when the house-elves were particularly busy preparing the meal for the school, she knocked against the wall beneath a large painting displaying a pear which Roary usually tickled to get in. Being a Muggle, she knew that if _she_ tickled the pear it would not help her. However, the house-elves knew her knocking by now and opened for her nevertheless. 

Aisha could see the little creatures were extremely busy, but knew from experience that they would not send her away. Pretending not to notice she had come at the wrong moment, she asked if they could teach her to make Yorkshire pudding. Of course, the house-elves claimed they would love to, instead of asking her to come back at a better time. Aisha made a mental note never to become as polite as them. Faking keen interest, she watched two of the little, servile creatures give her an untimely cooking lesson. All the while she was keeping a close watch on the state of the house table: Once they were ready, she knew, all the plates and platters would be magically exchanged with those in the Great Hall, transporting mountains of food to the hordes of hungry students and teachers.

Just when the house-elves had laid out all the plates and cutlery, had piled all the food on the platters and put bowls of steaming vegetables on the table, Aisha took a few steps towards the Gryffindor table to admire their work. Stumbling over a low stool, she slammed into the table, causing it to tilt her way. All plates and platters, all the jugs of pumpkin juice and bowls of food slipped off the table. Around her, moans of dismay rose. With their own handy little spells, the house-elves saved a few dishes of meat, but most of the food landed on the floor, or on Aisha, who lay on the floor as a crumpled heap.

She did her best not to swear. She had bruised her hip on the table rather worse than expected, and hot gravy was trickling into her collar and down her back. Wiping the mashed potatoes from her eyes, brushing a couple of peas out of her hair, she slowly scrambled to her feet again. 

After staring at the culinary disaster for a few moments, the house-elves had meanwhile rushed to work: Some started to clean up the table and its surroundings, while others had run to the castle's large pantries to fetch more food, to start cooking anew. It seemed that a few seconds after Aisha's accident, their frying pans had already begun to sizzle again. A few house-elves chanted in unison an incantation which was obviously meant to prematurely bring to boil the water for the potatoes. Aisha looked around. The whole kitchen was buzzing with rushed labour. Two house-elves hurriedly put out a few bowls of peanuts and chips, or rather, as the British said, crisps, on the empty Gryffindor table. Then, while every little being in the kitchen worked in a frenzy, a violet flash came down from the low ceiling, split into five parts, and exchanged the contents of the tables, those above and those below. From above, a few muffled cries of astonishment could be heard even down here in the kitchen. It was meal-time, but the hungry Gryffindors had not received their food in time.

Aisha asked the hurrying house-elves whether she could help them to quickly fix the hungry students a new meal, but was generally ignored. Every single creature in the kitchen worked towards getting the table in order; Aisha saw that they were remarkably effective. A few minutes later, the saved items and some impromptu dishes had been set on the Gryffindor table; all plates had been neatly arranged. Then one house-elf rung a large gong; another violet flash descended from the ceiling, and empty crisps and peanuts bowls replaced the impromptu meal. The task was accomplished; above, the Gryffindor students could start eating in earnest.

For a second, the house-elves stood immobile and quiet as statues. Then, a loud wailing broke loose: "Oh, the shame, the shame. We have failed the noble house of Gryffindor. Oh, the shame."

Aisha tapped the shoulder of one of the house-elves. He was one of the few wearing something resembling clothes, rather than a tea-towel toga, and if Aisha wasn't mistaken, he was the one possessing the most sense of the whole raving lot. Right now, he was the only one who had stopped wailing after the first few utterances, while the others were still emitting loud, uncoordinated noises of dismay. 

"Please," Aisha asked him, "I am _so_ sorry about what happened. Tell me what I can do to make it up to you."

"Mistress need not worry," the house-elf replied, his ears hanging limply by the side of his head. Aisha noticed the worries in his over-large, protruding eyes as he glanced over at his companions. "It is nothing," he said.

"But they are all so distressed," Aisha insisted, "and it was all my fault. Please, there has to be something I can do."

"Mistress need not worry," the house-elf repeated. "It is the custom of house-elves to be distressed if they fails their masters, and our master has always been excessively kind to us. Never, in many years, has house-elves failed to bring a meal onto the table in time in this honourable castle."

Aisha noticed that the other house-elves had stopped wailing; now they were shouting out suggestions to each other.

"Shut our ears in the oven door," one cried. 

"Nothing new," murmured others.

"Sit ourselves down on the fork stand," another house-elf suggested.

"Unhygienic, and the forks might bend," someone else contradicted.

"Topple down from the top of the stairs," a voice shouted out.

"Fetch potatoes out of boiling water with our bare hands," someone suggested.

"Wack ourselves with the brooms and mops," another piped.

"Clean the boys' toilets," Aisha thought she had heard, too, but perhaps she had been mistaken. Aghast, she turned to the house-elf wearing a jumper and socks.

"What are they doing?" she asked.

"Oh, they is only discussing how we should punish ourselves for tonight's failure," the house-elf replied as if the proceedings around them were completely normal.

"But it was _my_ fault," Aisha suggested. "If anyone has to shut her ears in the oven door, it should be me." She shuddered at the mere thought, but was sure it was a safe offer.

"Mistress need not worry," the house-elf repeated. "Mistress is human, and we is only house-elves. If house-elves fail, house-elves punish themselves, no matter whose fault it is. Fault is not the point with house-elves. Wizards are masters, and house-elves is servants, that's how the world is ordered."

"But I'm not a witch, I'm only a Muggle," Aisha insisted. "Please, _please_ don't punish yourselves. Please, let me do something to make it up to you. I would never sleep again in my whole life if you punished yourselves for my stupid mistake."

"Mistress need not worry," the house-elf said again, as if it was a mantra. "Humans needs not feel guilt about house-elves' punishment. House-elves is servant, and wizard is master."

Knowing it would shock the deferent little creatures, Aisha lowered herself onto her knees and wrung her hands. "It is the custom of Muggles to pay for their own mistakes, so I _would_ worry," she said, her voice pleading, the lie ringing in her ears. She knew loads of Muggles who knew of no such custom. "I would never _stop_ worrying if you hurt yourselves for this. Please, if you do not accept my apology, if you punish yourselves for my clumsiness, you will punish me much more than if you let me shut my ears in the oven door." 

 The other house-elves had gathered around her in a circle; they were staring at her. "Please, mistress, your ears is too short for that," a voice piped up from behind her.

"Then let me do something useful to make it up to you," Aisha said. "Let me do the lowliest work you can imagine – clean, for example. Maybe I could make it up to these poor kids who had to wait for their meal today by cleaning their rooms. Oh please, say that you will let me do this, that you will let me repay my debt – as a Muggle, I could never live with the guilt."

As she mentioned the Gryffindors' hardship of waiting for their food for five minutes, the general wailing re-emerged among the house-elves. However, she saw the clothed house-elf nod.

"If it hurts you to see us punish ourselves, you can forbid it, Mistress" he advised her softly. "And if you really insists, you can clean Gryffindor Tower with us for a couple of mornings. Goodness knows it can do with extra cleaning."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 It turned out to be a good thing that Aisha had agreed to help clean Gryffindor Tower more than once. Getting her hands on the Invisibility Cloak was not as easy as she had hoped, especially as Dobby, as the clothed house-elf was called, hardly ever let her out of sight. She was not sure if he mistrusted her or if he did not want her to overwork herself, but he was always there, doing the larger share of the work.

Knowing which dormitory was the correct one was not difficult: Dobby told her the very first morning where 'the famous, generous and kind Harry Potter' slept, and which trunk was his. The ugly little house-elf seemed to adore the boy. This meant that Aisha had to be extra-careful: Dobby would not tolerate her stealing from his idol.

On the fourth morning, however, Aisha saw a chance: Due to a particularly soiled boys' toilet set between the dormitory of the fifth and the sixth year, they had run out of Magical Mess Remover. Dobby told her he would run to get some, apologising for his inability to Summon it by magic. Aisha just nodded, but as soon as he was gone, she slipped into the empty dormitory of the sixth years. Checking quickly that all its inhabitants were at their classes and that the room was empty, she deftly opened Harry's trunk. There, under a pile of robes and a disarray of socks and jumpers, her searching fingers discovered the smooth, flowing texture she remembered so well. Carefully, she pulled out the Cloak and stuffed it under her overlarge sweatshirt, where two rubber bands strapped around her body were waiting to hold the Cloak in place.

Aisha closed the trunk and reached for the broom to sweep the floor of the dormitory. Her heart was beating frantically. Suddenly, her conscience raised its voice in her head, reminding her that it was wrong to steal, and even more wrong to steal from children.

Lupin needed the Cloak more than Harry, she justified her action. Harry had given the Cloak to his godfather, who, in turn, had given it to Lupin, she told herself; therefore, Harry himself might even give the Cloak to Lupin if he knew how badly it was needed. Anyway, surely Lupin would return the Cloak to Harry in time; it was not as if she was depriving the boy of his valued possession for good.

Sweeping the floor with deft strokes, she tried to chase away the very unpleasant feeling that she was doing something wrong. She must not look guilty when Dobby returned, she reminded herself. Instead of dwelling on her misgivings, she imagined the look she would see on Lupin's face when she gave him the Cloak. Surely, he would take her more seriously now.


	24. Hermione

24 – Hermione 

Finding Remus Lupin, or maybe the Lupin impostor, had been sheer luck; all she had done was walk past an open door and cast a quick glance inside, and there he had been, talking to one of the Muggle musicians Professor Varlerta had brought to the castle. Then again, maybe the accident of finding him had been one waiting to happen, considering that he had rooms next to the Alchemists' laboratory. Now that she had found him, Hermione knew she had to plan her next steps carefully. It would not do to walk up to Lupin and say: "Hi, I've brewed a potion for you – care to taste it?"

Because of her many duties, time was scarce for Hermione. Therefore, she actually left the brewing of the Litmus potion to Harry and Ron – scratch that, to Harry. They had come a long way since their second year, when Hermione had been the only one able to brew complicated potions in secrecy. After five years of Potions class, she supposed that Harry would manage nicely. Without Snape breathing down his neck, he hardly messed up his potions anymore, as could be seen in Professor Lyons' class.

Then, between classes, homework, Alchemy and League meetings, Hermione found time to devise a plan with Harry. Once he had completed the potion, they decided that the two of them would take Ron to see Lupin and have a little talk. There were plenty of innocent topics: They could ask about Sirius, about Lupin's travels, about how he was feeling, and why he was obviously not as ill as Ron: Whereas Ron's will to live had suffered considerably after he had tried to curse Harry, Lupin had seemed quite normal when Hermione had seen him, even though the Ice Missile had succeeded in turning him into a killer. 

If Lupin really _was_ Lupin, the answers to all these questions were interesting to know. If he was an impostor, the more people were talking to him, and the more subjects he was confronted with, the better: Harry and Hermione would both have a flask of the potion hidden in their sleeves, waiting for a chance to sneak it into Lupin's omnipresent teacup. 

Of course, there was still one problem: As the potion effected a colour change, Lupin himself would notice. However, if he turned red, indicating that he was _not_ a Polyjuice impostor, this meant he was the real Lupin himself, and as an Order member he would understand their concerns, Hermione reckoned. If he turned green, if the potion proved he had indeed drunk Polyjuice potion, Hermione and Harry would have their wands ready. There might be a fight, but they reckoned that if push came to shove, somebody, maybe Nicholas and Perenelle working next door, would hear the noise and come to their aid. 

When the potion was finished, Harry and Hermione agreed to go and see Lupin the next evening. As Hermione was working long hours in the Alchemists' lab now, Harry even did something he had never done before: He did Hermione's homework. Using a quill bewitched to write in Hermione's handwriting, he did one of Professor Lyons' too easy Potions essays and also copied his list of concealment charms for Defence Against the Dark Arts with it. Hermione knew the homework would not quite be up to her standards, but as the quality of Harry's work had much improved over the last few years, she knew it would be alright. Skipping her homework for once gave her the hour in the evening they needed to visit Lupin.

"Maybe we shouldn't take Ron, after all," Harry whispered to her, as the three of them were getting ready to leave the common room. "If it comes to a fight, he will be unarmed and easy to hurt."

Hermione fiddled with the small potion vial tucked into her sleeve, making sure it sat securely in its place. "Due to his injury, Lupin shouldn't have a wand, either," she reminded Harry.

"If he's an impostor, he is sure to have a wand," Harry retorted.

Hermione nodded; Harry had a point. Nevertheless, somehow she wanted Ron to come along. It wasn't that she really thought they needed him, but rather that the three of them had done so many things together in the past. To exclude Ron because of his injury was one more sign that showed the three of them were no longer what they once used to be.

"You are not taking me along, then?" Ron asked. He looked a little sad.

Hermione and Harry shared a glance. Ron rarely spoke unless addressed directly or showed an interest in anything whatsoever. Hermione realised that she and Harry had developed a slight tendency of talking _about_, rather than _to_, let alone _with_ Ron.

"Yes, sure we are," Harry told him, and that settled the matter.

Upon their knock, Lupin opened the door for them. He was surprised to see them, but gave them a kind smile and asked them to come in and have a seat. As could have been predicted, he made a pot of tea and produced a few of biscuits for them.

"It may have been stupid to return here," he told them when Harry asked about his pursuit of Wormtail, "but we met a number of people who said they had heard of him. He is supposed to have frequented certain wizard bars in Boston and New York as well as in London. We went to the places where people say they have seen him – for example the _Basilisk Bar _in New York, but we never had any luck. Of course, we had to be extremely careful, because we are wanted in the States, too, and it has been made public that we are likely to be together. Therefore, we finally decided to split up: I could not rid myself of the suspicion that while we were looking for Wormtail in Boston and New York, he was really in London, so I took a flight back. When I realised how dangerous it had been to come here, I turned to Dumbledore for help, and look where it's gotten me. Locked in here, I have no chance whatsoever of cornering Peter Pettigrew." He sighed. "Really, I should have stayed with Sirius."

"But isn't it good to be here, I mean because of the Ice Missile and everything?" Hermione asked. "I mean, I am quite surprised, because you seem to feel much better than… than Ron, for example." She did her best to sound and look as if she regretted saying something like that, as if she did not feel comfortable with the subject. Next to her, Ron made the tiniest of noises, as if he wanted to say something, but couldn't or wouldn't. 

Lupin shifted his position until he faced the two of them. Hermione forced her eyes to stay on Lupin and Ron, rather than to shift to the side; it was perhaps the best opportunity they would get to sneak the potion into Lupin's teacup. _Harry will do it without me prompting_, she told herself while listening to Lupin tell her that he was indeed suffering from a lack of willpower and focus in his life since the Ice Missile had caused him to curse Cornelius Fudge to death.

"I know it is maybe too private a thing to tell students," he said, "but I'm not a teacher anymore, so I suppose I can tell you – maybe it will help you, Ron. When I had finished school and found that there weren't too many career options for me as a werewolf, I fell into the black hole of depression. All my friends had their own lives now, had careers and maybe even spouses, only I did not seem to have one. I felt that my life was useless, and that no kind of effort I could ever make would be worth it. Inactivity pulled me down into a state of mind that felt like a bottomless pit. I woke up in the morning and dreaded the day before me. Somehow, I managed to get out of that state of mind. I told myself over and over again that my life must have meaning, and that there had to be something useful for me to do during the day. Gradually, I got better, and I gathered strength from that. In a way, the things I felt when the Ice Missile made me kill Fudge were quite similar to that depression I had experienced before. This is why I knew how to fight such feelings, and to stay myself, at least as well as I could."

He averted his eyes and turned to the table, taking his teacup to sip the steaming, golden liquid. Harry's and Hermione's eyes met. He had done it, Hermione realised. She felt anxiety suddenly burst into her stomach as if someone had pulled a lever. 

"What you've got to do, Ron," Lupin said, "is to tell yourself over and over again that your life is worth the fight. I know it's difficult to do so if you doubt it yourself at times – goodness knows that I know how that feels. However, you must remember that unless the Alchemists manage to complete a panacea," with these words his eyes strayed to Hermione, "you are the only one who can really help you. You've got to convince yourself that you–"

Noticing Hermione's, Harry's and even Ron's stare, Lupin looked down at his hands. They had turned a bright red.

"Oh, you, too," he said, smiling sadly at the three of them. "You know, you are the third party sneaking a Litmus potion into my teacup. You must all think me a spy tanking up on Polyjuice potion every hour. I suppose I understand that, but I still can't help wishing that at least _some_ people would take me at face value."

So he wasn't an impostor, but the real Lupin. Hermione felt shame well up in her, and from Harry's face she could tell that he wasn't happy about what they had done, either.

"I'm sorry," she said in a small voice. "I know it was a mean and maybe even cowardly way to find out. But don't you see, we've _got_ to trust you, and since Professor Moody was impersonated by an impostor – well, I suppose we have all grown careful. Please, don't think we did it because we don't care for you – it's rather that we did it because we _do_ care, and we want to be able to trust you."

"I know," Lupin said, but he still looked a bit hurt. "It's just a little strange that _everyone_ in this castle seems to want to give me this potion. Couldn't Dumbledore have told you that he subjected me to it, and that it proved I wasn't a traitor?"

"Dumbledore? He didn't even tell us you were here in the castle," Harry replied. "Hermione found it out by accident, and then…" Harry gave Hermione a look which clearly suggested she should explain. She knew that was only fair, as brewing the potion had been her idea altogether.

"Look, we _are_ sorry, Professor Lupin. I didn't know what to think, I only thought it was strange that nobody told us about you, and I'm still surprised that you and Sirius split up. When you went to the States, we were told that you – well, that you couldn't be left alone due to your injury, and that Sirius was taking care of you. It seemed strange to me that he sent you back on your own, into such danger, and without a wand and everything, when you are not well. It just does not sound like Sirius."

Lupin gave her a rather strange look. Then he said in a choked voice: "You see, I got better after a while. Sirius was quite right to send me off on my own; the injury and its consequences do not bother me very much now."

Hermione looked over at Ron. "Then why doesn't Ron get better?" she asked, feeling a sudden surge of despair. 

"I don't know," Lupin replied softly. Then, after a short pause, he added: "Perhaps, all we can hope for is that the panacea will be done as soon as possible – for Ron, and for all those other poor students who were hurt."

It was very much like Lupin, Hermione thought, to think of the students' cure first, not of his own.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next afternoon, Hermione met up with Nicholas, Perenelle and Ambrose Curtis at the Alchemists' Lab as usual. They were working hard: The panacea was making great progress, but the twenty-first of March was approaching rapidly. With Nicholas and Perenelle gone, Hermione did not know how she would be able to continue their work. At times, asking questions, learning from them, would have slowed down the progress in the lab. Therefore, she often seemed to be at cross-purposes with herself: If they worked as quickly as possible, they might still finish the panacea in time, but if they didn't make it, Hermione would not know enough to complete it on her own. However, if Nicholas and Perenelle took time off their work on the panacea to teach Hermione, it was less likely that they would finish it in time before they – well, before they died. Therefore, every question she asked, every time she put learning first and the panacea second, she felt selfish. Still, she knew that she was expected to learn, that she was expected to continue their work if it wasn't finished after the twenty-first of March. That accursed Equinox! Not only was it the expected Death Day of Nicholas and Perenelle, but also the day of the upcoming election – a bad omen, Hermione felt. Somehow, the world looked bleak, even terrifying these days, and being granted the chance to study Alchemy with the ancient couple did not make things look brighter anymore. While she had been excited about the chance to learn from the Alchemists at first, now she often perceived her situation as a burden.

The one person who seemed able to ease her worries was Ambrose Curtis. Not only was he always cheerful and optimistic; he also did not expect quite as much from Hermione as everyone else appeared to do. He did not expect her to save the 'afflicted' and the world to boot; he just saw her as the youngest member of a team which was working hard at a difficult task.

As often, she found Ambrose and Perenelle meditating, while ancient Nicholas Flamel was shifting about with his retorts and glass dishes. In a hushed voice, he greeted her.

"Lo, behold, my lass, what treasure I have secured for our labour," he said, and showed her a tiny glass vial holding less than a teaspoon's worth of fine, grey powder.

Hermione felt her heart skip a beat. "Is it …?" she began, but did not dare to finish the question, fearing that her hopes might be disappointed.

"Aye, my lass – 'tis from the ashes of the almighty bird of rebirth, of the Phoenix," Nicholas replied, awe in his eyes. "The bird possessed by my dear lad Albus has sacrificed a fraction of his flesh for us."

Hermione felt her skin crawl, but suppressed it. They had been waiting for Fawkes' transformation for ages, but there had been no way to know when the bird would die, and whether he would grant them a part of himself. Phoenix ash was maybe the most precious of ingredients in potion making and Alchemy. As Dumbledore had told them, if you broke the life cycle of a Phoenix by stealing a part of its ashes, you did not only kill the bird for good, but also turned its ashes into a deadly poison. Only when the bird itself willingly granted you a part of itself, thereby suffering a wound that only time could heal, only then this fraction became one of the most powerful ingredients for a panacea or healing potion. 

They had stated their cause to Fawkes, telling him of their need. Then they had waited. Now, it seemed, when the bird had died in his flames, a tiny part of his ashes had gathered on a tiny, separate heap, signalling that the Alchemists were permitted to take it. 

Together with Nicholas, Hermione weighed out the ashes on a miniscule scale and divided it into fifteen equal portions. Snape would have been proud of her, she thought grimly as she dished out the ashes with tools so small she needed a magnifying glass to see what she was doing. None of her year mates would have succeeded at such a delicate task.

When the fifteen dishes for the fifteen 'afflicted' each held their share of Fawkes' ashes, it was time to add the other concoctions. There was a substance which combined the properties of diamonds and ginkgo leaves; there was a transparent, potion-like liquid made from mistletoe and snake's poison; but Nicholas also opened the bottle that contained newborn babies' first yells mingled with the chirps of birds greeting the birth of a day. As the noises oozing out of the bottle could be heard in the room, Hermione once more felt awed by the powers of Alchemy. It was called 'the magical craft among magical crafts,' Perenelle had once told her, and Hermione well understood why this was the case. Potion brewing was comprehensible; influencing objects or even people with your willpower and your inherent magical strength was also something Hermione felt she understood. A few rules of nature appeared to be broken by magic, but the limits of magical powers still dominated over spells and hexes. Alchemy, however, often seemed not only to break the rules of nature, but the rules that were behind the rules; true Alchemy, Nicholas had once told her, had no limits.

Nicholas opened a few more bottles with ingredients they had carefully prepared – like the taste of fresh spring air, the smell of wet, fertile soil and the roar of the ocean, the mother of all life. After these had been added to the concoction, Hermione and Nicholas waited for Ambrose and Perenelle to come out of their trance and take a seat on the two chairs facing the panacea-in-progress. What they needed now was the power of the _source_; the elements of the panacea had to be connected, to be merged into one, by the powers the Unspeakables commanded.

Watching Unspeakables work fascinated Hermione – maybe because there was nothing to be seen altogether. They just sat there motionlessly and communicated with the _source_ by no means visible or audible to Hermione. Then, often much later, a subtle change occurred in the structure of the panacea. Hermione found it difficult to put into words, but she was learning to perceive how matter and sound, light and smell were interacting in the metaphysical substance, even though she often could not say whether she was seeing, smelling or hearing this. 

While Ambrose and Perenelle were adding _source_ powers to the panacea, Nicholas Flamel was murmuring a Latin incantation: "_Licet omnis haec jungat inam unas et facere animus vitae; licet labrum corporeus platanus est supero ut facere magia totus_." 

Hermione murmured with him, having learned the incantation by heart. However, she had the impression that while he was controlling a complex experiment with his voice, she was only parroting along. In contrast to the spells she was casting every day, the incantation did not feel powerful to her. The power it was supposed to hold did not reveal itself to her, at least not yet. She yearned for more knowledge, but knew that once more, getting on with the panacea was more important than her education.

After little more than half an hour, Nicholas stopped chanting for no reasons apparent to Hermione. He closed his eyes for a moment; then he trotted off to the sofa on the other side of the laboratory, slouched down and put his feet up on a stool. Perenelle and Ambrose started moving again; they shared a look and rose from their chairs. Their work was completed for now, but once more, Hermione had no idea how to tell whether or not this was the case. She would have greatly liked to ask Nicholas, but saw that the ancient wizard had started snoring. Obviously, everyone but her was exhausted. She could have gone on working for hours, but then again, she had not really participated in the work they were doing, the work she did not really understand yet. 

Seeing how tired the others were, Hermione decided to make them some tea. While she was fiddling with kettle and tea leaves, Ambrose joined her at the small stove that had been placed in one corner of the laboratory. As she knew he would not be able to tell her anything about his work anyway, she decided not to ask him. Instead, she told him what she and Harry  had found out the day before.

"We gave the Litmus potion to Lupin," she whispered, hoping the hiss of the kettle drowned out her words so that Perenelle, who had taken a seat next to the sleeping Nicholas, couldn't hear her. "He turned red, not green, so it really _is_ him." 

Ambrose nodded. "That's what I heard, too. Someone else tried the same, and they also said he can't be a Polyjuice impostor."

Hermione felt annoyance rise in her. Not only had she taken much trouble to gain this information in spite of her overfull time-table, but she also felt she had hurt Lupin for nothing. 

"You knew already? Why didn't you tell me?" she asked Ambrose, hearing the edge in her own voice.

Ambrose gave her an apologetic smile. "Yes, I suppose I should have done that, shouldn't I? Penthesilea told me a few days ago, and I didn't think of telling you, but I admit that was a mistake. After all, I asked you if you could find it out for us. Will you forgive me?"

"Well, I suppose so," Hermione said, still moderately put out. "But how did Penthesilea find out about Lupin? I haven't seen her in the castle since the last Order meeting, and that's been ages ago."

"I think the President of the League told her," Ambrose replied, taking the overfull teapot in both hands to carry it off to Perenelle's table. 

_He did that on purpose,_ Hermione thought. _He scuttled off so I can't ask him any more questions – like: Who is the President of the League, and what does he, or she, know about Lupin?_

However, she knew she was not supposed to discuss League affairs in front of non-members like Perenelle, so she returned to the table and poured the tea like a good girl.

"That was quite a piece of work we got done, wasn't it?" Perenelle asked Ambrose.

The dark-skinned wizard nodded. "But it's a pleasure. I've never participated in any work of Alchemy, so it is exciting to see the effect that _source_ powers can have in this context."

Perenelle smiled. "You should get together with this young lady to do Alchemy even after our – after the panacea is done." 

'_After our deaths' is what she wanted to say,_ Hermione realised. Time was running out. She admired Perenelle's serenity, considering that after living almost seven hundred years, the ancient witch was going to die in less than two weeks when the elixir of life was finally used up. Still, Hermione wished the ancient Unspeakable would understand the importance of getting the panacea done in time. This was Ron's health and sanity they were talking about, for goodness' sake, and the health and sanity of so many others. She did not feel she could complete the panacea without them, so they _had_ to get it done before March twenty-first.

"So what is the next step?" she asked.

Perenelle gave her a weary smile. "You are right, I suppose. Let's get ole' Nick woken up so we can prepare the next big piece of magic. We might as well get some more Unspeakables to support us, too – Molly Weasley has just completed the first step of her training, and it will be a good experience for her to help us." She gave her snoring husband a shake. "Wake up, old man, and explain to your apprentice what's to do next!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

While Hermione had been busy up to that point, only now she learned what being _truly_ overworked was all about. Alchemy filled her afternoons and evenings; homework was done before and between classes, _in_ classes under the desk or even with the help of Harry. For the first time in her life, Hermione learned what it was like to fall behind in her schoolwork. _It is only for a short period of time_, she told herself. By now, she knew herself well enough to be assured that she would be able to make up for her negligence in no time at all, but she still did not like the feeling. She actually considered asking Professor McGonagall for another time-turner, but remembering the dizzy spells and attacks of nausea the device had sometimes given her in her third year, she decided against it. She needed her wits about her and could not afford to fall ill. Therefore, she clenched her teeth and got on with her work. If only the panacea was finished in time, no sacrifice would be too great.

As for her History of Magic project, she had to let it rest for now. True, it was an extra NEWT credit, but this was Ron's _life_, this was far more important. Every morning she set her alarm-clock an hour earlier than everybody else did, denying her fatigue which was due to having worked late into the night with Nicholas and Perenelle. 

Hermione even excused herself from all League meetings. Once the panacea was completed, she would attend again, she told Ambrose. The Unspeakable indicated that he found her decision completely acceptable.

Harry did his best to shield Hermione from all further inconveniences in life. He took care of Ron, did research for Hermione in the library, and kept his own worries to himself. Worries he seemed to have in plenty: There was Ron, and Cho, neither of whom were feeling very well, and then there was that strange business with his supposedly stolen Invisibility Cloak. Even though Hermione secretly suspected Harry had only misplaced the Cloak under a pile of jumpers, she knew her friend was upset about the disappearance of one of his most treasured possessions. All in all, Harry looked drawn and overworked these days, just like her. Hermione knew he had a lot on his plate; she knew that she was adding to his load, but she could not help it. There was only one week left until March twenty-first, then there were only four days left; everybody was talking about the upcoming election and nothing else – only Hermione worried exclusively about the panacea.

Molly Weasley had come to Hogwarts to support the small team of Alchemists and Unspeakables. They worked together almost the whole day. Professor McGonagall had finally decreed that until the panacea was finished, Hermione would not need to do any homework for any of her classes, and could skip classes whenever she felt it was necessary. What, however, did 'necessary' mean? The 'old' Ron, for example, Hermione thought with a smile, would have thought it 'necessary' to skip all of his classes for a far lesser reason than the one she had. The 'old' Hermione, the one who mostly defined herself through her academic accomplishments, would have found it hard to skip any of her classes. As it was, she decided that not the importance of her classes, but the current state of the panacea determined when she would attend her lessons. If there was work to be done, she stayed in the laboratory; if, however, the panacea was in a state of slow transformation, if all they could do was to wait for the next thing to happen, Hermione decided she might as well wait in class. Knowing the importance of her task, all of her teachers accepted her sporadic attendance; she was not sure whether Professor Snape would have done the same, but Snape, of course, was no longer her teacher.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On the nineteenth of March, Nicholas Flamel finally decreed that the panacea was ready for some of its final ingredients: The tenacity of plants which had clawed through concrete, the energy that made a bulb live through a fierce winter and the first dewdrops of spring were added to the metaphysical concoction. 

"At Equinox, it will be thy task to gather the first dewdrops of the coming season one more time, Hermione," Nicholas told her. "Mayhaps the dewdrops we now possess will suffice. Yet only when springtime waxes beyond the point of Equinox, shall its magic rise to its full strength. Thou shallst offer the dew to our panacea on that day in a chalice placed beside its dishes, and if the panacea wants them, it will absorb them. If only my wife and I could wait for that day to add them ourselves, but, alas, I fear we can not." 

"We may still live in the morning, don't forget that," Perenelle reminded him, squinting at the metaphysical substance held in fifteen porcelain dishes to check whether there was any development. "And if a miracle happens, our work will be done tomorrow."

"Oh, please," escaped Hermione's lips, though she did not know with whom she was pleading. 

Perenelle turned to her and smiled encouragingly. "If not, you will make it on your own, don't worry," she said. "Nicholas and I have observed you, and we find you are doing quite nicely."

_I do not know enough to be left alone_, Hermione wanted to say in desperation, but knew that pleading was no good: The two of them would not leave her out of their own free will; in fact, there wasn't any kind of choice for them anymore in that matter. Dully, she stared at the fifteen dishes. Couldn't they just hurry up and develop into something that Nicholas would declare finished? She knew that the panacea was approaching its completion, but she was not even sure how she would know when it was finished. Once she had asked Nicholas, and the ancient wizard had replied that she would know in her heart if she was a true Alchemist. Well, what if she was not? What if she was unable to find out whether the panacea was ready to be administered to the fifteen people who needed it so desperately?

"How's your History of Magic project coming along?" Perenelle asked her. Hermione realised that her despair must have shown, and that Perenelle was trying to make her think of other things.

"I haven't had time to work on it for ages," she replied dully. She knew it was wrong to blame Perenelle and Nicholas for their approaching deaths, but could not help feeling she was going to be deserted in her greatest need.

"It's a pity that I am not permitted to help you, as I knew all ghosts of Hogwarts when they were still living witches and wizards. Unfortunately, rules are rules," the ancient Unspeakable told her.

Hermione nodded, her mind on other things.

"You might want to check their names in the _Department for the Discovery of Lost Lines_," Perenelle added almost in an undertone.

Again, Hermione started nodding, but then she suddenly looked up at Perenelle.

"I might want to check _where_?" she asked loudly, too astonished to check her voice. Not only did it seem that Perenelle had offered her information she was not supposed to get from anybody else; also the source the ancient witch had mentioned was one she never would have thought of herself. The DDLL, as it was abbreviated, was a department in the Ministry created so the pure-blood fanatics could indulge in their games of genealogy. It was a place where you could get the proof that your Muggle grandmother had really been a squib of wizard descent –provided you paid a high fee. Hermione had heard Arthur Weasley speak of the department with distaste, and of course, she knew that none of the other League members would approve of it. Therefore, the DDLL was enemy territory for her.

"Just an idea," Perenelle said with a smile and a shrug, but then she gave Hermione a very meaningful look. It seemed she really wanted to help Hermione with her History of Magic project. Or was it possible that there was something she wanted Hermione to find out, something that had little to do with her NEWTs?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On the night of the twentieth of March, Hermione couldn't sleep. She tossed from one side of her four-poster to the other, trying to put her worries aside. The panacea would not get finished any quicker if she deprived her body of sleep, she told herself. However, whenever she felt her mind approach sleep, adrenaline tore her out of the descent into unconsciousness. Anxiety would not let her rest. Hermione tried to inhale and exhale deeply, like in meditation; she even tried to Coax her body to sleep with the Coaxing methods she had once learned from Professor Varlerta. Yet all her efforts only increased the unrest in her body and mind; sleep eloped each time she tried to catch it.

In the early hours of the morning, Hermione gave up. Peeking through the half-open curtain of her four-poster, she could make out the sleeping body of Parvati, who had not closed the draperies, either. Lavender and Parvati, Hermione thought, were friendly and sociable airheads. She did not mind sharing a bedroom with them or even spending time with them, but still, the two girls seemed light-years away. They had to worry about so very little, and their joys and fears were so small compared to Hermione's. No wonder they were slumbering peacefully, Hermione thought. Noiselessly swinging her legs out of bed, she decided to dress in the dark and to look whether there had been any change in the panacea.

Shoes in her hand, she tiptoed down to the common room, managed to pry open the portrait covering the hole without waking up the Fat Lady (an accomplishment in itself), and sneaked down to the Alchemists' Lab. Nicholas' and Perenelle's quarters were a couple of doors down the corridor, so she was sure she would be alone with the metaphysical substance. That was to be a first – she had never been in the laboratory on her own before.

She opened the door and lit up two of the lab's six magical lamps: In the dark and silent castle, it somehow did not feel right to set the deserted laboratory ablaze. Her eyes, used to the darkness of the stairways, easily took in the fifteen porcelain dishes sitting on the table in three neat rows. Hermione pulled up a stool and sat down in front of them, not knowing what else to do. 

Given the panacea's magical ingredients, she had expected the dishes' content to gleam or shimmer, to show some sign of life or at least energy, but the amorphous, non-descript substance in the dishes seemed inanimate, even non-magical to her. As she did not dare to touch anything, she stretched out her palms over the dishes, wishing to feel anything at all which might indicate imminent success. Yet all she felt was blankness. An immense frustration overcame her. She _knew_ the panacea was nearing its completion; her mind told her that only yesterday, Nicholas had said he could feel the energy accumulate in the concoction. Only she, only Hermione the mundane, Hermione the rational, the non-Unspeakable, the non-seer, could not feel a thing. How could she ever hope to be an alchemist if she was unable to feel the development of a metaphysical substance? With all her knowledge of Arithmancy, with her outstanding OWLs in Transfiguration and Charms, with all her magical powers, she felt cold and insensitive.

"Come on, talk to me," she desperately whispered to the dishes. Then she waited. Nothing happened.

For a long time, Hermione sat there at the table, staring at the dishes. Wasn't there anything she could do? She knew she was to offer the substance the dew of Equinox, but dawn was still hours away. She realised she did not know when exactly dew would fall, anyway.

How could she finish the panacea on her own? How would she ever know when it was ready to be given to those who needed it? How would she give it to them, come to think of it? Panic rose within her when she realised that this was another thing she did not know. What if Perenelle and Nicholas never saw the morning? What if they had already died? Should she run to their room, wake them and ask them? There might still be time to do that.

Hermione rose from her stool, but then she sat down again. It was unheard of to disturb an ancient, possibly dying couple, in the middle of the night. They would have thought of leaving her a note or something, right? "I certainly hope so," she whispered to the panacea.

Suddenly Hermione felt immensely tired. She rested her head on her arms and closed her eyes, longing for oblivion. Before her eyes, she saw Ron as he used to be – carelessly laughing, a little reckless, someone who often seemed to see little beyond the horizon of a schoolboy – kind and good-natured up to the moment when somebody messed with the people he cared for. In spite of herself, Hermione smiled into the palms of her hands. Wearily, she permitted herself a moment of daydreaming. Before her eyes, she saw Ron, older and a bit more mature than in the past, but in his own way, just as careless. _He will be alright_, she whispered to her palms, _he's got to be_.

When they woke her, it was bright daylight. The tap on her shoulder startled her immensely; she was surprised she had fallen asleep at the table. Rubbing her stiff neck, she looked at Perenelle in amazement.

"Don't say, 'aren't you dead yet?' – it isn't polite," Perenelle chided.

"I wasn't going to," Hermione replied, embarrassed. This was such a macabre subject. Perenelle's and Nicholas' calmness deeply impressed her, however. Looking over at Nicholas, who was checking the panacea, she asked: "When … I mean, what happens now?"

Perenelle smiled crookedly. "I don't know exactly, to be honest. A couple of centuries ago, we experimented with the elixir of life, and from what we found, it seems if you stop taking it, you suddenly drop dead about a week later, and that should be today. As for the exact time, I'm afraid I can't give you that."

Hermione shook her head to clear it. "You experimented on humans and let them die?" she asked incredulously. 

"Like us, they had exceeded their normal life span and would have died without the elixir," Perenelle replied. "If we felt there was a good reason for it, we granted people the elixir of life for a while. This happened a few times over the centuries we have seen. In each case, the people knew that the time we could grant them would not be infinite. No one can live through an eternity; everybody's life must end, just like ours will end today, or at the very latest, tomorrow. If the people we gave the elixir had completed the task for which they wished to prolong their lives, we stopped giving it to them then. Some pleaded with us, some even tried to threaten us, but most of them accepted their fate. They understood that the world would fall into ruin if everybody were granted eternal life. In the end, all of them died, most of them in our care."

Hermione nodded, but felt immense discomfort. Bent on creating a panacea and curing the victims of the Ice Missiles, she had not yet reflected upon what being an Alchemist might mean. The ultimate success of the guild of Alchemists, the Philosopher's Stone, granted the owner not only eternal life, but power over life and death. She did not desire such power, did not want to decide who was permitted to live a little longer and who wasn't. 

"Take hope, ye dear ladies, and behold – Hope has entered the panacea!" Nicholas exclaimed joyfully, his wrinkled face almost touching the porcelain dishes.

Both Perenelle and Hermione bent over the table. Hermione could not spot the difference, but somehow, the metaphysical substance floating in the dishes seemed to have increased in strength. She could not tell why she felt this, so maybe she was only imagining things.

"Is it completed now?" she asked, trying not to get her hopes up, unwilling to admit that she had no clue whether or not the panacea was finished.

"Nay, it is not, but it is progressing," Nicholas replied with a benign smile.

"Please," Hermione asked in a choked voice, "can you tell me how to find out whether the panacea is ready, and how to administer it when the time has come?"

Perenelle and Nicholas exchanged glances. _They see how unsuitable I am_, Hermione thought, her heart sinking. 

"Dear lass," Nicholas said, "as we find that thou will have need of the knowledge we could not yet impart to you, we shall give thee this." With these words, he opened his Alchemist's bag and took out an ancient, leather-bound tome. Giving it to Hermione, he said: "We have found thee worthy of receiving the ancient 'Book of Alchemy', which holds all the knowledge of our trade. Its value exceeds its weight in gold, as it is the only one of its kind still in existence."

Awed, Hermione stared at the book in her hand. Could it really tell her all she needed to know to complete the panacea? Could she become an Alchemist by learning from a _book_?

"We have observed you, and find that as things are, you are the most promising successor we have – the only successor, as Albus Dumbledore will not be able to practise much Alchemy in the future," Perenelle told her. "According to the rules of our guild, you can only receive this treasure if you have passed the test of the guild. However, let's face it, there is no one else of our kind left to argue, so we'll just give it to you without a test, confident that our knowledge falls into the right hands."

"I am deeply honoured," Hermione replied softly, blushing with embarrassment. She had never felt more unworthy of such a gift.

"Take heart, dear lass," Nicholas said; with his outstretched, claw-like hand, he gently touched her cheek. "Thou dost better than thou thinkst. Be confident that thou willst yet become an Alchemist. I believe it was thee who has added Hope to our panacea." 

Hermione shrugged. She could not remember doing any such thing. When Perenelle put a small vial of water on the table, she felt even worse. The first dewdrops of Equinox – she had completely forgotten them!

"I'm so sorry I forgot," she murmured. "It's – I mean, you should have had the time to sleep in." She bit her tongue, unhappier than ever. She had almost said: 'It's your last day,' as if Nicholas' and Perenelle's holidays were ending, not their lives.

"It's fine," Perenelle said with a smile. "Like many old people, I tend to wake up early. Go and offer your dew to the panacea."

Dutifully, Hermione poured the cool liquid in a glass chalice and placed it between the porcelain dishes. If the panacea wanted those dewdrops, it would absorb it, Nicholas had told her.

Turning around, she saw that Nicholas and Perenelle were putting on their cloaks.

"Where are you going?" Hermione asked, confused.

"We are going to make the most of our time – we are taking a Portkey to London, and then we are going to vote for Arthur Weasley," Perenelle said. 

Yes, of course, now Hermione remembered: It was Election Day, and everybody who was of age would take a Portkey to the ballots at some point during the day. More than ever before, she realised that Perenelle and Nicholas were looking towards the future, even if the future wasn't theirs anymore.

"Sure, of course," Hermione replied, hearing the slight tremor in her own voice.

"We are in a bit of a hurry to get to London, because there is no telling how much time we've got left," Perenelle told her. "But of course, we did not want to go without saying goodbye." With these words, she hugged Hermione tightly. Wisps of her thin, white hair touched Hermione's cheek. "You will do fine, girl, don't worry. We are immensely proud of you, and it is a good feeling to be leaving a part of our knowledge in such good hands."

Hugging her and her ancient husband, Hermione had to blink back the tears. Before she even found something to say to them, the two of them had once more waved to her and then had walked out the door. Hermione stared after them, realising that she would never see them again.

She turned to look at the fifteen porcelain dishes. She could not see Hope added to them in any way.

"It's just you and me now, I suppose," she whispered to the panacea.


	25. Ginny

25 – Ginny 

On the day of the election, Ginny found she was nervous and unable to concentrate on anything. Of course, the same might have been said of most of her teachers and fellow students. The British Minister of Magic was elected every seven years; the last election had been four years ago, when Ginny had not paid much attention to these things. Back then, of course, it had been quite certain that Cornelius Fudge would be granted a second term of office, so the election had not caused as much tension as the present one. This time, everything was open; the _Daily Prophet_ had published a dozen entirely different prognoses. No one knew who would become Minister of Magic this time. 

Of course, for Ginny the question held a special relevance. She wasn't sure whether she wanted to be the daughter of the Minister of Magic, but she was convinced that her father would do infinitely better than Lucius Malfoy. For one thing, that was what everybody was saying. For another, she remembered Malfoy from that memorable day in _Flourish and Blotts_ before her first year of Hogwarts, remembered his smirk and the fear he had caused her later. If Malfoy became Minister, she would cease to feel a member of British magic society. She would go underground like Sirius Black as soon as she had grown up, she decided. She would oppose that government, and so would many others, if she wasn't mistaken. If Malfoy became Minister of Magic, it was likely that the foundation of magical society would be shattered. 

Even though the thought of becoming an outlaw had a certain appeal to Ginny, she realised that things would be much simpler, not to mention better, if her father became Minister of Magic. Most of her fellow students seemed to agree with her, even Candice Fudge, whose grief had added to her general maliciousness. Everybody she knew rooted for Arthur Weasley. _He's got to win,_ Ginny thought – _nobody will vote for Malfoy_. 

Ginny knew that the teachers were all leaving the school for a quick Portkeying to London during the day. She fervently wished she was of age and could vote, too. As it was, she had to remain at Hogwarts and hope the adults would put things right. _He's got to win_, she calmed herself.

At seven o'clock in the evening, Wizard Wireless would be broadcasting the first results. Someone had put up a radio in the Gryffindor common room; students were sitting around it, eager to hear the outcome of the election. Some of the younger students did not seem to bother, but were playing Exploding Snap; however, the older Gryffindors were listening attentively and eagerly. Ginny saw that some students had hidden baskets of food under the table, presumably for a little celebration. Somehow the thought made her uncomfortable.

At seven o'clock, right after the news jingle and the usual "Good evening, witches and wizards of Britain," the witch behind the microphone stated: "According to current projections, Lucius Malfoy will be Britain's next Minister of Magic, attaining fifty-two point one percent of all votes. While the last projection in the afternoon suggested a neck-to-neck race, by now a clear trend towards a majority for Malfoy is visible. Wizard Wireless correspondent, Herb Inquis, talked to the designated head of magical Britain." 

"Mr. Malfoy, all trends point towards a majority for you. Is that what you expected?" a voice came from the radio.

"Of course – taking one look at my competitor convinced me that this was the only possible outcome of this election." Even through the battered old speakers, Malfoy's voice sounded distinguished, slick and self-assured. "The witches and wizards of Britain have voted, and they have chosen stability and safety over the hodgepodge concepts of Muggle lovers and the breakers of our sacred traditions. Weasley would have been a danger to our country, and I feel very relieved that I could stop him. I am in the happy position of being able to promise magical Britain that it will not fall to the ruin of clueless reformers like Weasley."

"_Daily Prophet_ correspondent, Rita Skeeter, interviewed the supposed loser of this election, Arthur Weasley," the news-speaking witch reported. After a short, static noise, a witch's voice came over the ether: 

"Arthur Weasley, you announced that you would 'steer magical Britain into the reforms necessary to defend the country against a take-over from You-Know-Who'. Now projections show that you have lost the election. How do you feel?"

"Er, first of all, I have, er, not given up hope that the final outcome of this election will defy the current projection," Ginny heard her father's voice over the speakers. He sounded insecure and weak, she thought. "I'm still convinced that the witches and wizards of this country mean to defy You-Know-Who, not support a second realm of terror. Whatever happens, however, we will not stop opposing You-Know-Who and all those who support him, be it through deeds of violence or through politics."

As the news speaker's voice replaced her father's, Ginny felt the realisation sink in: They were counting their losses. Lucius Malfoy would be Minister of Magic. Her father had lost the election. Those who opposed You-Know-Who had put their trust in Arthur Weasley, had hoped he would save the country from Malfoy's rule – and they had been disappointed. Her father had failed.

Suddenly, everybody seemed to be staring at her. Nobody said a word; all that could be heard was the news speaker's voice, blurred to her ears. There would be no celebration tonight; no one would enjoy the basket of the house-elves' goodies stored under the tables. Numbed by the realisation of what the victory of Lucius Malfoy, likely as it seemed, would mean to them, the Gryffindor students just stared at Ginny. _Your father was our hope, and now he has failed_, their eyes seemed to say.

"I'm going to bed," she announced to no one in particular. Followed by the gazes of many, she got up and walked up the stairs to her dormitory as quickly as she dared.

Ginny took off her shoes and crawled into her four-poster without bothering to undress any further. She closed the curtains around her and stared into the semi-darkness. He had failed. Her father had failed. They had lost the election. Malfoy would be Minister.

Of course, there still was a slight possibility that the final outcome would differ from the last projection, but Ginny did not really believe in it. If the trend was announced on the radio, it was likely to be the outcome of the election, right?

Sleeping was out of question: It was only a quarter past seven. Going to bed had been a bit silly, in fact, Ginny decided. She had left the common room because she experienced her father's defeat as a loss of face, she realised. She was ashamed that he had failed so many people's hopes. Going to bed had been the only escape she had been able to think of – the only way not to answer any questions or listen to any comments.

"Ginny? Come on, I know you are not sleeping!" The voice was Rhonda's. Ginny wished the bass player would go away.

Rhonda moved the hangings of Ginny's four-poster back and forth to simulate a knock on the soft fabric. "No chance of communicating with you?" she asked.

With a sigh, Ginny sat up and pushed her legs through the hangings. Then she drew them open. Rhonda sat down on the bed next to her.

"What a crappy outcome," she said. "I can't believe they all voted for someone who seems to be supporting You-Know-Who. That bloke should be put into Azkaban, not made our Minister."

Ginny shrugged. "That's what people voted for, though," she said with a hoarse voice.

"I suppose so," Rhonda replied. "It's still – well, it's scary."

Ginny nodded. She had nothing to add to that.

"I just don't understand it," Rhonda continued. "I mean, what are people thinking of, voting for Malfoy?"

"I suppose they voted for him because he is rich and successful, and he's from a famous, respectable and influential family," Ginny said. _And we are not_, she added in her thoughts. 

"Well, that's a good reason to vote for someone," Rhonda said slightly sarcastically. "Never mind politics, or affiliation, or somebody's intention – as long as the family is respectable, people vote for him." She snorted in contempt. Then she added: "I personally think _your_ family is perfectly respectable, too, by the way, and if you're not rich, all it shows is that none of you ever resorted to any kind of crime or exploitation just to make money."

"You really think so?" Ginny had never seen things that way.

"Sure," Rhonda replied. "Now, if Malfoy is made Minister, all it shows is that fifty-two percent of the voters are criminals themselves, or people who profit from the crimes of people like Malfoy. It's not like it's exactly a secret that Malfoy supports You-Know-Who. If the witches and wizards of this country vote for him, I don't want to have anything to do with them."

"This country stinks," Ginny whispered. She felt tears stinging her eyes.

"Let's emigrate," Rhonda suggested off-handedly.

"Where would you want to go?" Ginny asked, not feeling very encouraged by Rhonda's suggestion.

Rhonda shrugged. "I don't know. I heard there are supporters of Voldemort in other countries, too, so I suppose the rest of the world stinks just as well."

Ginny nodded, her eyes on her wrinkled bedspread. She felt a vague hopelessness, a fear of things to come. Still, she felt grateful that there was someone who had come up to see her, someone who shared her worries.

"I suppose we should go down to the common room and comfort ourselves with the food they brought for the celebration," she said.

Rhonda raised an eyebrow. "As the sister of the notorious Weasley twins, you are at least expected to plan a revolution tonight," she admonished her.

Ginny grinned at her crookedly. "Okay, then, let's plan a revolution over treacle tarts," she replied.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It wasn't easy facing everyone for the next couple of days, but it was good to know she had friends who were on her side in spite of her father's failure. Winning the election with a final 51.9 %, Lucius Malfoy was made Minister of Magic in the Ceremony Hall near the ancient and sacred site of Bryn Celli Ddu. The _Daily Prophet_ printed a picture of him undergoing the traditional ceremony, a picture which reminded Ginny of Percy's wedding. However, while the wedding had all in all been a good thing, there was nothing good about having Malfoy for Minister.

As Professor Varlerta's apprentice, Ginny sat through an endless meeting of Dumbledore's Order together with Harry, Hermione and Neville. People were afraid, she realised. Some were earnestly considering emigration. Some were worrying about their children; some were worrying about their jobs in the Ministry, as Malfoy had announced a 'cleansing' to cut down expenses.

There was a wide-spread fear of Malfoy proclaiming a general amnesty for the Death Eaters imprisoned in Azkaban. Dumbledore tried to calm his 'order', reasoning that this would not be in the best interest of Lord Voldemort, as the imprisoned were mostly mad and therefore useless to their master. Nevertheless, rumours were growing like daisies in springtime. Malfoy would ban all Muggle-born from the Ministry and from Hogwarts, some feared. Malfoy would make being a Death Eater legal, others warned. Malfoy would make supporting You-Know-Who mandatory, some even suggested. Of course, the members of the Order agreed they were not going to take this. Many people predicted that there was the danger of a civil war in Magical Britain. It scared Ginny.

Making music in such a time of fear and dread seemed absurd on the one hand. On the other, practising with her band was one of the few things Ginny could still enjoy these days. Accompanying others on the drums and taking part in the process of writing songs made her feel one with the group and with the music. In the company of her band mates, she felt relatively comfortable.

Kay's song had evolved into the band's second self-composed number; Neville had added a chorus and lyrics, and they all had arranged and re-arranged their instrumental parts until they were satisfied. Ginny had to concede that having the keyboard player in the band was starting to be an asset, not a liability. Strange as it was, Snape's punishment had resulted in something good: Kay was younger than the other band members, and therefore a bit of an outsider, but musically she had started to blend in. Was it possible that Snape had meant well when he had forced Ginny to take the girl on? 

Considering that Snape had disappeared under highly suspicious circumstances, presumably to rejoin Lord Voldemort, it seemed more than unlikely that he'd care about such trivial matters as her band, Ginny thought. He was probably evil through and through, and virtually unable to do good. However, this did not quite fit the way Ginny had always seen the former Potions master of Hogwarts. She would never forget that night when he, Sirius, Neville and she had rescued Professor Varlerta from the Death Eaters. Snape had seemed reliable then; if she wasn't mistaken, she had seen him kill Death Eaters, not help them. Also, Ginny had always thought Snape had a thing for Varlerta, but then again, she wasn't quite sure about that. Be that as it may, she had personally never hated Snape as much as, say, Ron had. Sure, he was a nasty person, especially where the Gryffindors were concerned, but she had always suspected him of having a very shrewd sense of humour. Many of the things he'd said to her class during her school years had been bitingly funny in a bitter and grotesque way. That, of course, did not automatically mean that Snape did not support Lord Voldemort. She certainly would not have said she knew Snape well enough to judge something like that. Come to think of it, maybe it wasn't entirely easy to know Snape.

By now she had confessed to the other band members that Kay had been sent to them as a punishment. The others had been amused. Kay's laugh might have sounded a little forced, until Joolz had said he wished all Snape's punishments had been such a stroke of luck. Oh yes, Joolz. Ginny smiled when she thought of the guitarist. He knew how to make people feel at ease. Maybe he even knew how to make people something else, too, she mused.

Five days after the election, Ginny escaped from another hot common room discussion about Malfoy and his plans by running off to her band's room. Practising the drums always calmed her. First she went through a short period of frantic, semi-rhythmical drumming, pounding away at all parts of the drum-set to work off her frustration. With each stroke, she imagined hitting a witch or wizard who had voted for Lucius Malfoy; each kick on the foot pedal was directed at someone who had failed to show up at the ballots, assuming that Arthur Weasley would win anyway. That's what people were saying: Many witches and wizards had believed it impossible that a blatant supporter of You-Know-Who would win; therefore they had not found it necessary to leave their cosy armchairs on Election Day. It was all their fault, _bang_, _bang_, Ginny thought while drumming away. Also, there were rumours that Malfoy had magically influenced the outcome of the election. There was no proof of this, however, and as Malfoy was the head of the Ministry, there was no investigation of these rumours, either. _Take this, Malfoy, you cheating scum, _Ginny thought as she hit the cymbal hard. 

After a few minutes of her wild playing, Ginny felt a soothing exhaustion. She tried a few paradiddles, but found she couldn't concentrate on any complicated exercise. She tried a few rolls, but today they felt arrhythmic and clumsy. Sighing, she leant against the wall behind her stool and closed her eyes. Her father's defeat still bothered her. Somehow, life was far less fun now; it was as if she had woken up from a dream only to find life bleak and more than slightly threatening.

"Gin." Someone was stroking gently over her ultra-short, red stubbles. 

She opened her eyes and saw Joolz standing next to her, his hand resting lightly on her head. He must have sneaked in while she had had her eyes closed, she realised. When she looked up at him, he crouched down beside her stool so that their faces were on one level; his hand slipped down from her head to her shoulder.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

Ginny felt obliged to agree, but stubbornly decided against it.

"No, I'm not," she retorted. "Life stinks, and this country stinks, too. How could they possibly vote for such a criminal?"

"I've been wondering, too," Joolz said grimly. Then he turned his face to hers; his eyes met hers. "You shouldn't take it personally, though. We will all deal with this problem together. Dumbledore will think of something. We won't give in."

"We will never serve Lord Voldemort," Ginny whispered, remembering this year's welcome feast.

Joolz nodded. "Never ever. Not one of us. We will fight that slime, and we will win," he said in a gentle voice that stood out in an odd contrast to his belligerent words.

"You think so?" Ginny asked, cringing at the quiver in her voice.

"Don't worry," Joolz said and put his hand on Ginny's left cheek. Ginny felt herself get goose bumps. The warm feeling of skin on skin was unfamiliar to her; his breath touched the skin of her face, as he had come close. The blood was throbbing in her ears. She did not dare to look at him for fear of doing the wrong thing.

Gently, Joolz pulled her towards him and kissed her. Knowing that this was how these things were done, Ginny closed her eyes to exclude all other perception, only to experience the kiss through feeling it. First his soft, warm lips just touched hers like two fingers fitting in the ridges beneath her lips, while two of his dreadlocks were brushing her cheek. Then she felt something else between her lips which sent shock-waves of an alien feeling through her body – his tongue, she realised. Although it seemed a little strange to her, she opened her lips to let him in, to let him touch her tongue with his. There was a faint taste of the after-dinner pudding on him, she noticed. Having somebody else's tongue in her mouth seemed very odd to her at first, but the feeling of his tongue rubbing against hers sent something like electricity through her whole body. She never wanted it to stop.

After a while, Joolz drew away with the ghost of a grimace and got to his feet. Ginny realised that while she had been sitting comfortably on her stool, he had been crouching next to her, probably in a far less comfortable position. It was on the tip of her tongue to suggest he should sit on the stool and she would sit on his lap, but she did not dare vocalise such audacious thoughts. 

Once more Joolz' hand stroked Ginny's stubbly hair; she realised it was a parting gesture. She did not want him to go: She was craving another kiss, and, admittedly, a statement of sorts. 'Are you my boyfriend now?' she would have liked to ask, just to know what to make of the thing that had just passed. But, if the girls from her year were to be believed, boys did not like girls asking such questions. Therefore, she bit her tongue. 

"Hang in there, Gin," Joolz said kindly before he left the room.

_Hang in where_? Ginny wondered. Did he mean: 'Hang in, and it will be alright, even though your father wasn't elected Minister?' Or did he mean: 'Hang in and wait for my love?' 

Shaking her head in confusion, Ginny returned to her paradiddles, but somehow, she could not get the rhythm to flow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ginny longed for a chance to talk about Joolz with someone, but she did not know who to approach. In earlier years, she would have entrusted herself to Hermione, but Hermione had become distant since she had been working on the panacea. The older girl always looked drawn and bleary-eyed these days, because she was working late into every night. Ginny knew she should feel grateful, because Hermione was trying to save two of her brothers, but she could not help missing her old friend from the life when there had been more time to spend at ease.

In her own year, the girl she liked best, the one who shared most of her secrets, was Rhonda. However, she felt it would not be a good idea to talk to Rhonda now. If she wasn't mistaken, the bass player had a love interest in Joolz herself, so it would be neither wise to turn to her as an advisor, nor good tact to use her as a shoulder to cry on. Talking to Neville was out of question. For one thing, he was a boy. For another… well, he was a boy.

Still, the words were burning on her tongue: _Joolz kissed me, Joolz kissed me_. Even more burning was the questions in her heart: _So what happens now? Is this it – is this love for real? Will he be my boyfriend_? After turning the questions over and over in her mind for an almost sleepless night, she turned to Aisha. The Muggle drummer wasn't someone her age, but, being a Muggle, she wasn't as adultish to Ginny as, say, Professor Varlerta. Still, if Ginny wasn't mistaken, Aisha knew quite a bit about love and such.

Ginny gulped down her lunch as quickly as she could to meet Aisha before her training session with Neville and Professor Varlerta. There was no way she could wait any longer. Leaving Rhonda to stare after her in a bewildered manner, she jumped up from her seat as soon as she had stuffed the last bite into her mouth and hurried out of the room and straight to Aisha's quarters.

Upon her knock, the drummer opened. Her eyes widened in shock when she saw Ginny. "Are you alright?" she asked immediately.

Ginny realised she had run all the way for no apparent reason. "I'm fine," she replied a little breathlessly.

Aisha raised an eyebrow in an expression of doubt, but held the door ajar for Ginny to enter. Ginny slouched down on a chair. She knew she was supposed to come up with a decent story or question now, but as she couldn't find any words to express her feelings, she just remained silent.

"So what are you fine about?" Aisha finally asked.

"Joolz," Ginny answered truthfully.

Aisha grinned. "Handsome young man."

"He kissed me," Ginny added a little blandly. 

Aisha nodded thoughtfully. "And that's what you're fine about."

Ginny shrugged. What else could she feel about it?

"Well, do you _like_ him, or do you want him to keep off?" Aisha asked a little impatiently.

"Of _course_ I like him." It hadn't occurred to Ginny that she might not want Joolz to kiss her.

Aisha sighed. Then she said: "Considering the state you're in, I've got the impression that there is something you want to talk about. It also looks like something's distressing you, so it can't just be that Joolz has kissed you and that everything is wonderful, period. I have no intention of guessing what this distressing thing might be, so if you want to talk to me, could you _please_ go ahead?"

"I don't know what will happen now, and if he really likes me, and if he's going to be my boyfriend," Ginny suddenly blurted out. "I always thought he liked Rhonda, and Rhonda liked him, but now he kissed me, and I don't know what's going on. And I – I _think_ I'd really like him to be my boyfriend, but then Rhonda will be really sad, and I think that with the Ice Missile and everything, and her wand and Quidditch taken away from her, she's got a hard time anyway." Suddenly she felt tears sting her eyes. She violently rubbed them with her fingers. "That's stupid," she said, fighting the tears. "I'm really happy he kissed me, and I've got no reason to cry or anything."

Aisha came over to her and put an arm around her shoulder. "It will be okay," she said gently. "You're only a little confused, that's all."

Ginny put her head on Aisha's shoulder. She did not reply.

"It's nice of you to think of your friend," Aisha said, "but if you really like Joolz, and he really likes you, that's more important. Sometimes we get hurt in love, and sometimes we hurt other people. That's how it is. But it's worth it, believe me."

"Are you sure?" Ginny asked anxiously. Somehow all the electricity, all the joy of having been kissed by Joolz, had evaporated in the light of all the confusion it might create. 

"Yep, I am." Around Aisha's lips played a mysterious, almost telling smile; there was a light in her eyes. Through the veil of held-back tears, Ginny suddenly noticed that Aisha was wearing a touch of makeup and a decidedly feminine blouse today. "I'm not saying it is always easy, but I'm definitely saying it's worth it."

Ginny sat up in her chair. "Then what do you think I should do?" she asked the Muggle woman.

Aisha thought for a moment. "Well, they always teach us women to sit and wait until the man of our choice makes the relevant move. I'm personally not buying this old-fashioned crap, at least not if it is sold to us in terms of morality. In terms of prudence, I'd say a bit of patience often helps not to get yourself hurt. If you can, lean back and let things happen; let him believe you are still considering. And most importantly, try not to worry about it too much. You may get hurt, but if you do, that's not the end of the world. You are still young and will be in love many, many more times."

Ginny bit her lip. That wasn't exactly the kind of thing she wanted to hear. She would have liked a recipe to get Joolz to officially claim her as his girlfriend at once, and to get Rhonda not to mind this at all. Of course, she knew she might be asking a bit too much, but then again, weren't adults, even Muggle adults, supposed to know how to handle such things? 

"Enjoy love while it lasts, and try to regret as little as you can, that's my motto," Aisha told her, another radiant smile on her lips.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day, Ginny went to the band room early, again, mainly as a chance to be alone. Upon entering it, she found Joolz seated in a corner, putting new strings on his guitar. Ginny started when she saw him, but as he greeted her with a nod, she felt it would be impolite to flee. Seeing that he was busy with his instrument, and unwilling to stand by his side and wait until he put his guitar aside and _maybe_ kissed her again, she sat down behind her drum set. 

Undecidedly, she twirled the drumsticks between her fingers. For some reason, she did not want to break the unusual silence of the band room. Instead of playing, she just watched the fluent and precise movements of Joolz threading a string through the bridge of his instrument and pulling it through. He took a measurement at the instrument's head, then took a small pair of pliers and shortened the string. All the while, there was a wrinkle of concentration on his usually smooth, even forehead. Ginny found him breathtakingly handsome and suddenly doubted her own memory: Had this good-looking, popular Quidditch player and rock guitarist, had this widely fancied boy really kissed her, or was she just imagining things? She observed his face and noticed his long, dark lashes which, now that his gaze was on his instrument, were more prominent than ever. 

She could have watched him forever, but suddenly, before he had even finished tightening the string, Joolz looked up at her and gave her a broad grin. "What's up, Gin – have I got tomato sauce on my face, or something like that?"

Caught staring at him, Ginny felt herself turn beet red. She did not know what to reply. 

Still smiling, Joolz put his instrument aside, got up from his chair and came over to her. For some reason, bent on being his equal in height as well as she could, Ginny got up, too. 

"You are a really strange girl,  Gin, did you know?" Joolz said to her. There was humour in his eyes.

"So?" Ginny retorted for lack of a better response. She did not want him to find things funny. For her, this was a serious matter. On the other hand, Joolz' widening smile was contagious.

Joolz put a hand on her shoulder, pulled her towards him, and kissed her again. Ginny liked it even better than the first time, maybe because she now had an idea what things would be like. She felt his mouth melt into hers and let him draw her close to him. Her hand wandered up his back and into his hair, enjoying the compact feeling of his dreadlocks between her fingers. Meanwhile, Joolz' hands slid down her body, caressing her back and finally slipping under Ginny's Gryffindor cardigan and t-shirt. His fingers were warm and gentle; wherever they wandered, it felt like they belonged there. Ginny felt her whole body grow warm in a very pleasant way.

"Hey, Ginny, have you heard – they say the election was –" The moment Ginny heard Neville's voice trail off and die away, all pleasant feelings evaporated. Joolz and she drew apart to face the rest of the band who had just come in. Both Neville and Rhonda were very white in the face, while Kay headed straight for her keyboard, pretending she hadn't noticed anything odd.

"Sorry for interrupting," Neville said in a hoarse voice, his eyes stony in a way Ginny had never seen them before.

Rhonda just stared at them, but did not say a word.

"Well," Joolz said, looking uncomfortable for the first time since Ginny had known him, "let's get to practice."

It was the worst band practise that Ginny had ever experienced. On the surface, everything went relatively smoothly; they played through all their songs without making many more mistakes than usual. However, Ginny felt no flow in the music; it seemed awkward and mismatched in itself, as if there was no logical connection between the different instruments. Nobody would meet her eyes, or look at each other; everybody just stared at their instruments, or, in Neville's case, into nothingness. Ginny was glad when the band practise was over and she could return to Gryffindor Tower. However, there was no escaping from Neville and Rhonda: With the first, she shared a common room, with the latter a dormitory. 

Ginny tried to avoid both of them. She told herself over and over that she hadn't done anything wrong, but for some strange reason she still felt guilty. She _knew_ that Rhonda was interested in Joolz, and if she was honest with herself, she knew that Neville had been in love with her for ages. So far she had been able to ignore it, but now that he had seen her kissing Joolz, she suddenly became acutely aware of the fact. Neville and she saw each other every day – in the common room, during their training with Professor Varlerta, in band practise. In some ways, he was closer to her than anyone else – when they did music magic together, she could feel his powers weaving into hers in a manner that nobody else would understand. She cared for Neville and wished him well; he was a friend she knew she could rely on. As the singer – and occasional flutist – of her band, he had managed to convince her of his musical skills. It wasn't that she didn't find Neville interesting – but somehow she could not imagine being Neville's girlfriend.

Joolz was different. When he entered a room, good-looking, charming, cheerful and sure of himself, he was often the centre of attention. Many girls admired him. To be his girlfriend would mean to be envied by many.

_I don't only like him because he's popular, _Ginny told herself._ I like him because he is nice, and fun to be with, and because he understands a lot of things. He makes me feel all warm inside, makes me feel excited, the way I used to feel excited about Harry and about Sirius a long time ago. Only they were fantasy, and Joolz is real. Joolz is truly interested in me, he has kissed me in reality, not in my imagination._ Thinking of Joolz' kisses, of touching him, made a warm feeling ooze into her stomach.

Ginny kept to dark and lonely corners for the rest of her evening and got more of her homework done than usual. When she suspected that Rhonda had gone to bed and might be sleeping, she tiptoed up to the dormitory. All she wanted was to be alone. However, Rhonda was crouching next to the dormitory door, obviously waiting for her. Ginny felt a jolt of anxiety. What did Rhonda want – to cause a scene?

"Ginny, I need to talk to you," Rhonda said quietly. "Can you spare a minute?"

Ginny shrugged; she could hardly deny this to her friend, so she crouched down next to her. "Sure:"

"It's about Joolz," Rhonda said softly. "I know what you are thinking," she added, seeing Ginny's gaze, "that I'm jealous or something. Well, maybe I am. But it's not only that. I – I want to warn you."

"Warn me?" Ginny could barely keep from snorting incredulously. "Warn me of Joolz?"

"I'm not saying he's going to murder or rape you, Ginny," Rhonda whispered impatiently. "Joolz is a very nice guy, and he's a great kisser, as you have undoubtedly found out for yourself, but he's a womaniser, too. He just can't stick with one girl. He doesn't do that to hurt anyone, but he _does_ hurt girls from time to time. I only wanted you to know that so you can decide for yourself if you mind that or not." 

"He has hurt you," Ginny said, understanding. "You thought he was your boyfriend, but he was two-timing you." 

Rhonda nodded. "More than once, in fact. I mean, I really like him, I even think I love him, but I'm not putting up with that anymore. If you think you can, fine. If not, my advice is to stay away from him."

"The fact he two-timed you doesn't automatically mean he will two-time me," Ginny replied stubbornly.

"True," Rhonda said, looking a little hurt. She got to her feet. "I'm going to bed then."

Ginny nodded. "Me, too," she replied a little stupidly, considering that being in front of the dormitory door, this was no surprising piece of information. "Thanks for the warning, though," she added a little stiffly.

"No problem," Rhonda answered without looking at her. Then she opened the door. Without another word, the two girls entered the dormitory and went to their four-posters.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ginny had a nightmare about thunderstorms that night. Well, maybe it was just an ordinary dream which for some obscure reason frightened her enough to make her wake up, filled to the brim with adrenaline: After suffering from Riddle-related nightmares during her second and third year at Hogwarts, she was unwilling to call a dream about something as banal as thunderstorms a _nightmare_. Be that as it may, the dream woke her up. Ginny found it hard to go to sleep again; she even tiptoed to the window and peeked through the curtains to see if there was a real thunderstorm, but the night seemed ordinary enough. Still, her body could feel the tension of clouds breaking and lightning tearing through the air. There was an indefinable unrest around her, or maybe within her – she could not tell. 

Sneaking back to her bed, Ginny took her Shaman drum from her trunk and placed it next to her pillow. Then she took special care to close the curtains, because she did not want people to see her sleeping with her drum as if it was a doll or teddy bear. She knew it would look silly, but she also knew that the magical instrument would calm her. Huddling under the covers, she placed the drum on her stomach and her hands on its skin. Of course, actually playing the drum in the middle of the night was out of question, although Ginny could think of nothing more soothing. Still, the skin of the Shaman drum gave off its own, gentle vibration which seemed to talk to Ginny in a moment like this. Now, it seemed to talk of unrest, but certainly not of danger. Trusting that the drum would warn her in any case of threat and that it would by no means let Ginny roll on it and damage it, she fell asleep, her fingers caressing the rough, painted surface of the drum. 

The next morning, she almost overslept; she was late for breakfast, although she dressed in a hurry. Her eyes scanned the room for Rhonda and Neville, because she still felt like avoiding both of them. To her relief, she found neither, so she just sat down and grabbed some toast.

Still chewing, Ginny took up her bag from the floor to go to her Charms class; brushing her teeth had to be omitted today due to an acute lack of time, she decided. Lost in thought, she walked to her classroom like an automaton, still vaguely relieved that she didn't spot Rhonda. When she sat down in her seat and the bass player still wasn't there, she started wondering where Rhonda might be. Come to think of it, Flitwick wasn't there yet, either, although it wasn't like the teacher to be late. Before she could ask somebody about either the girl or the teacher, however, the door was forcefully pushed open and Neville came in. He was quite red in the face and puffing slightly. When he beckoned to her, Ginny yet again expected that someone would cause a scene, but once more she was wrong.

"You've got to get your drum and come quickly," Neville said a little breathlessly. "It's ready, and they say they might need us for it."

"What is ready?" Ginny asked, understanding nothing.

"Well, what did you _think_ was ready?" Neville said, his eyes narrowing at her just a tiny little bit. "The panacea, of course."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ginny fetched her drum and ran up to the Alchemists' Lab without even bothering to apologise to the substitute teacher who arrived just as she was leaving. If the panacea was ready, this explained the absence of Flitwick and of Rhonda: Now all those who had been hit by an Ice Missile would hopefully be cured. Two of those whose future depended on the metaphysical substance were her brothers. Ginny felt very ashamed about almost forgetting them for a short while. Suddenly, kissing or not kissing Joolz Hengert had become a matter of minor importance.

In the crowded Alchemists' Lab, she could see all fifteen Ice Missile victims – Ron, Fred, Rhonda, her year-mate Colin Creevey, Cho Chang, Padma Patil, Flitwick, Lupin, Dumbledore, Hagrid and a few more younger and older students she didn't know very well. All of them were sitting on chairs forming a circle around a round, wooden table. Madam Pomfrey was keeping in the background, observing the patients closely. Neville stood in one corner, holding his flute; he was conversing with Professor Varlerta. On the one side sat Ginny's mother talking to Ambrose Curtis, the dark-skinned Unspeakable, and to Hermione. Ginny noticed how thin the older girl had become. There were dark shadows under Hermione's eyes, and she looked like she hadn't washed her hair in weeks. Nevertheless, there was a strange kind of dignity in Ron's year mate. It took her a while to figure out what made her look so different that day: She was in charge here; everyone, even the teachers, even Dumbledore, was expecting her to take the lead. Authority suited Hermione, Ginny thought with the slightest trace of envy; it looked almost elegant on her.

Professor Varlerta greeted Ginny with a nod. "They are not sure whether or not they need us here," she said. "Normally, a panacea is given to a sick person aided by just the Alchemist and an Unspeakable. However, as we have an unusually large amount of people in need of the panacea, it has been decided that the whole process will be overseen by Molly to make sure there is always enough source power at hand. As we three have proven to be able to deal with source power through our music, we might be asked to support the process. Therefore, we've got to have our instrument ready to help them whenever they need it. I suppose you know what to play, don't you?" 

Ginny nodded. Of course, she knew how to musically deal with source power, even though she did not understand it, nor was supposed to understand it as a non-Unspeakable. Clutching her Shaman drum, she watched Hermione say a few more things to her Unspeakable partner, Ambrose Curtis, and get an affirming nod from Molly Weasley. For Ginny, it was still strange to see her mother there: She knew that Molly was undergoing further training as an Unspeakable, but still could not quite believe it. It wasn't as if she didn't respect her mother or even thought her incapable of doing serious magic. She still saw her mainly as a person who ruled her house and her kitchen instead of dealing with the incomprehensible and secret powers which only the Unspeakables could truly control.

All of a sudden, everyone in the room fell quiet. Ginny's mother and Ambrose Curtis knelt beside the table and closed their eyes; they looked like they were starting to meditate. After a short while, Hermione raised her arms and sang a Latin incantation which Ginny didn't understand. Then the young Alchemist placed a small glass vial in front of each Ice Missile victim. Another incantation followed. Ginny felt her Shaman drum vibrate; she had the impression that Neville's flute was emitting a soft note in reply. An enormous power filled the room; between Hermione and Ambrose Curtis, there seemed to flow a stream of magical energy. Ginny's eyes were on Ron and Fred. Like all other Ice Missile victims, they held their eyes closed, probably because they had been instructed to do so. With all her heart, Ginny hoped that the panacea would finally cure her brothers.

"Albus Dumbledore," Hermione finally said, "we have gathered here to give you a panacea and to cure you of your magical ailment. Will you accept it?" 

"Yes, I will," Dumbledore replied, his voice a little shaky.

Hermione placed his glass vial in his palm. "So be it," she said.

Ginny expected the headmaster of Hogwarts to open the vial and drink the liquid in it, but the old wizard just pressed it to his forehead. The vial started to glow, first like a firefly, then brighter and brighter until it shone like a little star. Ginny had to close her eyes for a moment. When she reopened them, Dumbledore had sunk back in his chair, obviously unconscious, the empty vial in his slack hands. She found the sight slightly worrisome, but as nobody else commented on the fact that Dumbledore had fainted, she decided that this was the normal course of action for curing someone with a panacea. Even Madam Pomfrey kept her distance, a sure sign that the Headmaster's state was not critical in any way.

On Dumbledore's right sat Professor Flitwick; he received his panacea in the same fashion which also resulted in the vial gleaming bright and the consequent fainting of the patient. Next in line were Hagrid, Cho, and then finally Fred and Ron. Ginny held her breath when it was her brothers' turn, but if she wasn't mistaken, they were subjected to the 'normal' panacea procedure and suffered the same effect. Hermione had to know what she was doing, Ginny decided; over and over again she told herself that her brothers would be alright.

Hermione was passing from student to student now; not once had Varlerta, Ginny and Neville been called to help in any way yet. Each of them was asked the ritual question and given the panacea. Each time, the vial in the 'afflicted' person's hand flared up until it shone like a star, and when the patient had fallen unconscious, Hermione moved on to the next person. Last in line, on Dumbledore's left, was Remus Lupin, now the last person still sitting upright at the table. 

"Remus Lupin," Hermione addressed him, "we have gathered here to give you a panacea and to cure you of all magical ailments. Will you accept it?" 

"Yes, I will," Lupin replied, though it sounded more like a question than an answer.

Hermione placed the glass vial in his outstretched hands. "So be it," she said for the last time.

Lupin pressed the vial against his forehead. Ginny waited for the panacea in the vial to start glowing, but nothing happened. She felt a wave of unrest go through those watching the procedure or involved in it – Varlerta, Neville, her mother, Ambrose Curtis and finally Hermione.

Molly opened her eyes and gave Varlerta a little wave. Varlerta nodded to Ginny and Neville and turned up the volume of her electric guitar just a little bit. After she had played the first couple of notes, Ginny and Neville joined in, closing their eyes to flow with the sound like they had learned to do.

As usual, Ginny felt the presence of her two fellow music mages, flowing in the stream of power just like her, riding its current, becoming one with its waves so they would be able to influence it. The two Unspeakables were like floodgates in a river of power – they were able to hold it back, to steer it, even to control it within certain limits. Hermione seemed like a shadow to Ginny now; compared to the other people controlling the experiment, she was operating on a different level of power. Then there were the fourteen patients who had already received the panacea. They seemed like encapsulated units of light: The panacea was shining within them, it was at work in them, but no power could get in or out – what would happen to her brothers and all the others now was out of her hands, Ginny realised. 

Ginny mentally approached the panacea in Lupin's hand, a light so bright it burned her inner eye, if not her mind itself. Once she had perceived the panacea, it seemed that nothing in the room compared to it in terms of brightness and power. Ginny was at the same time drawn to it and afraid of its blaze. The wizard holding the panacea seemed a shadow like Hermione. There should be a stream of power from the panacea to him, Ginny realised; she perceived several people urging the panacea in his direction: While Ambrose Curtis and her mother were trying to force the current that way, Varlerta and Neville were playing piercing, heart-breaking notes of Coaxing. 

Trying to find the rhythm that would best support their plea for the power of the panacea to enter Remus Lupin, Ginny joined in with them. With her drumming, she tried to tell the gleaming white light that the wizard holding it was its destiny, the cause for its existence. She tried to communicate that Remus Lupin was ill, that he had killed another wizard against his own will, and that the panacea had been brewed to help him, to finally cure him. She tried to flatter the panacea with her rhythms, tried to express its importance with little accelerandos and crescendos, but it was difficult to flatter a light too bright for her eyes. The panacea scared her. She realised it was unwilling to give in to her suggestions, to bend to her will. It would stay where it was, a hard, shining capsule of over-bright light, a unit of power which would not open to the wizard holding it.

Ginny heard Varlerta's guitar fade; she heard Neville's notes die away. Hermione was saying something. Ginny stopped playing and opened her eyes. Slightly dizzy, she looked around. Everyone seemed very exhausted; Varlerta's and Neville's temples were wet with sweat, and Molly was leaning against Ambrose Curtis, very pale in the face. Supporting herself against the wall, Hermione said softly, but clearly: 

"It seems we can't get the panacea to work on Lupin yet. I don't know where the problem is – maybe it has to do with him being a werewolf, or maybe we are only getting too close to the full moon. I will find this out later. For now, I don't think he is able to receive his panacea. I'm afraid we will have to give up for now."

"You will all need rest now," Madam Pomfrey said rather gravely.

"Yes," Hermione said, blinking away fatigue. "I suppose we should all get some sleep. If I am not mistaken, our patients will sleep at least twenty-four hours, at most forty-eight." She indicated the table on which fourteen unconscious people were slouched. Only Remus Lupin was still sitting upright, rubbing his eyes, his face betraying no emotions.

Madam Pomfrey raised her wand, conjured up fourteen stretchers, and started magicking the unconscious witches and wizards on them. Varlerta switched off her amplifier and started packing away her guitar, giving Remus Lupin a crooked, apologetic smile. Remus Lupin shrugged back at her, smiling crookedly, too.

It was over, Ginny realised. The panacea had been given to the 'afflicted'. If all went well, her brothers were saved.


	26. Ron

26 – Ron 

He had not noticed when he had begun to feel again, because you do not feel it if you feel nothing. The numbness of his heart and mind receded very gradually. Suddenly he realised he was feeling things again, and then he felt as if he was thinking. It was as if his brain was slowly wriggling its toes back into shoes that had not been filled for a time. Now he felt like running and kicking; he felt alive again.

Ron looked around and found himself in his own four-poster bed, the draperies almost drawn shut around him. Without hesitating, he swung his legs out of bed and slipped through the heavy curtain into the daylight of the dormitory. There was no need for him to sleep; he had never felt more awake in his life.

He dressed in a hurry. Then he took the stairs down to the common room in a run, for no other reason than the wish to spend some of the excessive energy his body held. When he tore open the door, all heads turned towards him. He answered their gazes with a blazing smile.

"Ron!" A whirlwind of black robes and dark, bushy hair streamed towards him, and before he knew it, Hermione had put both of her arms around him and was hugging him fiercely. He hugged her back.

"You saved me," he said to her, realising as he said it that, in some way he could not quite remember at the moment, she had indeed saved him. Her face turned to his, beaming. He noticed that her eyes were bloodshot and her hair unkempt, but right now she was the most beautiful being in the world to him. It wasn't as if he _decided_ to kiss her; rather, he suddenly _knew_ that he would kiss her right now.

"Hey, Ron, it's good to see you on your feet again," Dean Thomas almost shouted right beside his ear. Ron flinched a bit. He felt Hermione's grip slacken, felt her body draw away from his. Reluctantly, he let her go. The moment had passed; he would have to kiss her some other time, preferably without an audience, he decided.

Turning, he saw Harry and Ginny, who were also beaming. He realised they had had too much tact to disturb him while Hermione was hugging him, and the realisation made him blush. As Hermione stepped back, both came over for a hug – Harry for a rather manly around-one-shoulder affair, Ginny for a sisterly shorn-head-buried-in-his-chest thing, accompanied by an "Oh, Ron, I'm so happy" sob. He had been ill, Ron made himself clear; now he was better, and everybody was overjoyed about it. All this felt strange, because the past was a bit of a blur, but he was sure that he had never felt better in his life than right now.

"Do you feel okay?" Hermione asked tentatively, but her eyes were smiling.

"I feel wonderful," Ron assured her, trying to communicate more than just this with his gaze.

"Let's get to the hospital wing then and check on Fred," Ginny suggested.

Right, his brother had been suffering from the same sickness, Ron remembered. Suddenly he was very eager to see Fred. "Yes, let's go there right now!" he replied and turned towards the door to leave at once.

"Maybe you should rather have another lie-down," Hermione commented worriedly. "You have been very ill, and I'm amazed at your recovery. However, you shouldn't overdo it."

"I'm fine," he said, at the same time touched and amused by her concern. "I don't feel tired at all, and I really want to see Fred."

That settled, Ron, Hermione, Harry and Ginny went through the portrait hole to go to the hospital wing, only to find Molly Weasley waiting on the other side. When she spotted Ron, she rushed towards him. Ron thought she would embrace him, but she held him at arm's length.

"How are you?" she asked, and she scrutinised his face with fear in her eyes.

Ron gave her a broad, encouraging smile. "I'm cured," he said, knowing these were the words she wanted to hear.

"Oh, my darling!" Here came the expected hug, and a lot of unexpected noises made at his shoulder. 

Ron realised his mother was crying. He awkwardly patted her on the head, which was on one level with his shoulder. "I'm fine, it's alright, don't worry," he said, embarrassed by her display of emotions. "We were just going to look how Fred is doing."

"Fred is cured, too," Molly said, tears streaming down her face. "Angelina and George are with him now. As soon as I knew he was better, I came here to see how you were doing, but however much I pleaded, she –" Molly pointed at the Fat Lady, "would not let me in."

"You are not a student anymore, and I have my orders," the Fat Lady murmured, obviously a bit ashamed of her own strictness.

"I've been waiting here, hoping someone would come out and give me news of you, and then," Molly started sobbing again, but Ron could understand her words well, "then you came out, looking all healthy and happy, and now all my wishes have come true."

Ron felt touched – it was nice to know that his mother loved him so much – but he would have preferred it if she had chosen another moment to show it. At least the onlookers were people he could trust: Harry and Hermione were his friends and would probably not tease him about his mother, and Ginny – well, she knew herself how Molly could carry on.

When his mother finally let him go, Ron suggested they should go to the hospital wing to check on Fred. Together, the five of them walked over there. Ron remembered worrying about Fred before he had felt the vicious effect of the Ice Missile himself. He could only hope his brother was truly alright.

Fred sat on his bed, dressed in pyjamas, but obviously feeling well. He was chatting with Angelina and George, who were sitting on chairs next to the bed. All were smiling; when Ron entered the room right after his mother, both Fred and George jumped up. 

"It's our youngest brother –" Fred exclaimed.

"– and he's looking well," George added.

"Oi, Ronnikins, how are you?" Fred asked.

"Oh, there's no need to worry about Ronnikins," George replied in Ron's stead.

"After all, it was his girlfriend," Fred suggested with a grin.

"– who cured both of you," George said to his twin brother.

Ron suddenly felt rather hot in the face; he tried to read Hermione's expression, but Hermione was busying herself with her shoelaces. 

"It's so good to hear you two twin-talking again," his mother said, dabbing at her eyes. "If you could just make something explode right now or throw a couple of Dungbombs, I'd know that this is reality, not a dream."

"Hey, mum, we are past the age of throwing Dungbombs now," Fred said.

"– we are _producing_ Dungbombs these days," George added.

"Oh, yes, Dungbombs – can I see the workshop?" Fred asked George eagerly. "And you said we have a house of our own now. I know I'm supposed to have been there, but I don't remember it very clearly. Can I see it?"

Ron saw Angelina shift her position in the chair. Somehow she looked ill at ease.

"Sure," George said, his eyes on Fred's knees rather than on his face, "any time you want."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The day after Ron had woken up, Professor Flitwick, Professor McGonagall and Professor Varlerta ran a few tests on all the recipients of the panacea. After casting a couple of spells, making them drink a potion and having them do some magic for them, the teachers officially declared the former Ice Missile victims cured and handed them their wands back. 

It felt good to be a proper wizard again, Ron thought. Even the wand seemed glad to be back with him; it vibrated in his hand as if it couldn't wait to do magic for him. Ron knew he had to make up a lot of work for his classes, but for once, this did not discourage him: Since he had taken the panacea, he was full of energy. Hermione and Harry had to help him from time to time, especially in Potions, a subject Ron had thought he'd left behind for good. However, Professor Lyons was a kind teacher who said he perfectly understood that it would take Ron some time to make up for what he had missed.

Eagerly, Ron plunged into his first Quidditch practise; so did Rhonda Celps, the Gryffindor Chaser who had also been banned from the team due to being de-wanded and magically weakened. Her face, and the faces of the whole team, mirrored Ron's happiness when he could finally mount a broom again. Here, too, he realised he was a bit out of practise, but his energy and enthusiasm made up for that. Quidditch matches, which had been cancelled due to the illness of so many players, were now being re-scheduled; Gryffindor would be playing Hufflepuff in four weeks.

Ron was overjoyed to be well again. He made a show of thanking Hermione at least three times a day for it, and half-jokingly addressed her as 'Loremistress Granger.' Hermione modestly rejected the term 'Loremistress,' the formal address for an accomplished female alchemist, but Ron was sure that secretly, Hermione was pleased. However, a couple of days had passed since his recovery, and he still hadn't been able to get his courage up and kiss her. There never seemed to be the right time: He hardly ever saw her alone anywhere, and even if he did, it was in rather unromantic situations: They might be hurrying down the hallway or practising charms together, but so far, they hadn't walked in the moonlight together or climbed the Astronomy Tower at night. Ron decided that impatience would rather harm than further his cause, so he convinced himself that all he had to do was wait for the right time.

Optimistic as Ron was these days, he had to admit that a few shadows were cast on his happiness. The most prominent of them was the current political situation: His father had narrowly lost the election and Lucius Malfoy was Minister of Magic. The consequences of this development were unforeseeable, but threatening. The _Daily Prophet_ reported that Malfoy was relaxing Muggle protection laws: For example, if you altered a Muggle's memory, it was no longer necessary to prove you had a good reason for doing so. Also, Malfoy was changing the structure of the Ministry. Claiming that budget cuts were a necessity, the Department for the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts was threatened with closure. It was becoming likely that Ron's father would be out of a job by summer. Of course, the Weasleys' financial situation was not as tight as it used to be: Four of their sons were working now, and Fred had had a good start in the joke shop business by inventing a couple of 'frankly dangerous devices,' as Percy would undoubtedly have called them. If Ron's father lost his job, his adult sons would be able to financially support their parents. However, Ron knew that not only would it greatly humiliate his father to receive money from his children; Arthur Weasley also loved his job and believed in its importance. Ron was sure Malfoy was trying to close his father's department out of spite, and out of disinterest for Muggle affairs, rather than because a budget cut was inevitable: As far as he had read in the _Daily Prophet_, the Department for the Discovery of Lost Lines had just been expanded. Many people thought this was unfair and did not make much sense politically: Good relations with the Muggles were one of the things that had permitted the existence of a peaceful magical society through the last couple of centuries. However, there seemed to be nothing anyone could do about it: The Minister of Magic was head of the Ministry; he practically ruled magical Britain.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few days after Ron's recovery, Professor Varlerta approached him after her class. 

"I informed Mr. Pigmalgion that you are better, and he would like to see you soon," she told him. "Whenever you feel ready, tell me, and I'll send him an owl."

"I'm ready anytime," Ron replied. He hadn't thought of the Ensouling expert for ages, hadn't Ensouled anything since he had been hit by the Ice Missile last summer; but at the moment, he felt ready for anything. 

Professor Varlerta fixed a date with Mr. Pigmalgion right after Quidditch practise on Thursday. The Ensouling expert brought Ron an inanimate black chess knight. Ron knew he was taking a step backwards: Last year, Ron had started with Ensouling chess figures, but had already progressed to Quidditch balls. Of course, he knew he hadn't had a chance to practise Ensouling, so maybe it was a good idea to start small again.

Mr. Pigmalgion mentioned Ron's sickness and told him it might be a while before he re-discovered his Ensouling talents. He also discussed how Ron should proceed with the knight he had given him: The year before, the twins had found out that Ron's ability to Ensoul things depended on Harry: While Ron had the skill to relate to soulless things and to prepare them for having a will of their own, a spark of Harry's energy was needed to suddenly bring them to life. Ron and Mr. Pigmalgion agreed that Ron should have the knight in his possession and play with him at least ten times before he let Harry touch it, thereby ensuring that Ron would have had enough time to work on it.

Ron took the knight up to Gryffindor Tower and found a quiet place – the loo, in fact – to talk to it. He explained to the lifeless wooden thing what Ensouling meant, and told it that having a will of its own would bring many advantages to it: It would get to move, to feel and think, and to beat up other chess figures. Then Ron showed the knight a chessboard and showed it how to walk on it. Again and again, he set the little figure three fields ahead and one to the side, or vice versa. Once he thought he'd heard the tiny wooden horse neigh, but he had probably only imagined it.

Later, Ron introduced the black knight to his other chessmen, who, predictably, were only moderately enthusiastic after their experience with Ron's first Ensouled chess figure, the anarchy pawn. However, Ron was sure of his authority over the little figures, which had obeyed him for so many years. He told them that as a contemporary and dynamic team, they could be expected to train novices every now and then. He would have liked to play with the knight straight away, but when he asked Hermione for a game, all he got was a reminder of all the homework he still had to do. Sighing, Ron put his chess things away, tucked the new knight safely into an old sock and went to write his Defence Against the Dark Arts essay.

The next evening, he could persuade Harry to have a game. Harry had clear instructions never to come close to the new knight, because Ron was afraid this might spoil the experiment. Of course, there was no need for Harry even to touch the chessboard, because the figures moved according to his words. Apart from such general obedience, however, Harry's chessmen were misbehaving. Obviously they had forgotten that little more than a year ago, they had had a lifeless pawn in their midst, too: Seeing Ron's new knight, they took to jeering and cracking rude jokes about it to each other. Harry tried to discipline them once or twice, but the chess figures gave him little heed. Ron found himself annoyed; he wished Harry would be stricter with his chessmen. Again and again he told himself that the knight was still lifeless and did not notice that it was laughed at. Still, he felt the insult of Harry's chess figures as if it had been directed at him himself. 

The battle on the chessboard was a fierce one. Piece after piece was drawn off to the side by a ferocious opponent; both teams were dwindling. Ron urged his pieces to go after Harry's, to pursue them mercilessly. Rarely had he seen chess figures become so violent. Once, a beaten pawn screamed so loudly that even the other Gryffindors seated in the common room, used to the shouts of chess figures as they were, turned around to see what had happened. Finally, Ron saw his chance to beat Harry. He sent his castle to threaten Harry's queen. Harry reacted as Ron had hoped: He prompted his queen to move aside, dodging behind his bishop. Now, all Ron had to do was to urge his knight to attack from the side and slaughter the queen, sacrificing itself in the course, but opening the way for a glorious victory for Ron. "On you go," Ron shouted at the new knight – and the knight went.

Ron only realised what he had done when he saw Harry pale. 

"You've done it," Harry whispered, his eyes as round as Sickles. "You've done it on your own. And it's his first game, too."

Their eyes met for a moment; then both boys broke into loud and uncontrollable cheering. Hermione rushed over to check on them; at once she saw the small figure moving on the board, striking a macho pose over Harry's knocked-out little queen, the little horse rearing. Hermione started clapping, and so did Ginny and Seamus, who had both stopped by to check what the commotion was all about. The little knight, obviously assuming that they were all applauding his valour, shook his fists to show his strength, a complacent and self-assured smile on his face.

"He may not be the brightest of the lot," Hermione later conceded, "but he is certainly up to the butchering job of a chessman already. According to _A History of_ _Ensouling_, you have almost broken a record, Ron. Ensouling a functioning chess piece in one game has not often been done so far. You can be proud of yourself." 

Ron smiled; her praise was music to his ears. "There is a book called _A History of_ _Ensouling_?" he asked.

"Come on, Ron, don't tell me you haven't read it," Hermione said, her voice reproachful. 

Harry laughed. "He's not into book-learning, Hermione – I thought you had noticed that by now."

Hermione tried to reply, but was interrupted by the noise coming from the chess table. When they looked, they caught the new knight and his ferocious little horse in the middle of a violent brawl with three of the pawns.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ron owled Mr. Pigmalgion the following day, described his outstanding and single-handed success, and asked to receive more practise material. He specifically asked for a whole set of Unensouled granite chess-figures. He knew such a set would eat up his most of his savings, but he did not care; he hadn't spent a Knut of his allowance when he had been ill, and he figured he had the right to spend his money the way he thought best. He wanted to Ensoul these chess figures specifically for Hermione. They should be reliable chess pieces, he decided, but each of them should have a different character – a character that should make her laugh, that should maybe even make her think of him. He wanted to Ensoul chess figures which brought back memories, which mirrored Hermione's life, her character, her likes and dislikes. The queen, he thought, should be just like her –very intelligent, a very good strategist and a bit bossy.

To post his letter to Mr. Pigmalgion which contained his request for lifeless granite chess pieces, Ron went to the owlery where Pigwidgeon liked to spend his days. The tiny owl greeted him happily and was overjoyed to carry his letter, especially as Ron had not included any heavy coins. Ron watched the little owl zoom out of the window; then he left. When he returned to the Gryffindor common room, he found Harry and Hermione in a hot debate: 

"I don't care how he does it, then, and I don't care if it's dangerous. I want to know, and I've got to know, because of Padfoot," Harry was just saying to Hermione. 

"I understand that – I just wonder how –" Upon spotting Ron, Hermione stopped short. "Hey, Ron," she said, smiling sweetly and a little falsely, "have you posted your letter to Mr. Pigmalgion yet?"

Ignoring her reminder, Ron asked: "What are you talking about?"

"Well, we –" Harry stopped short and grimaced; Hermione had probably kicked him under the table.

"Nothing of importance," Hermione replied, blushing. 

"Are you keeping things from me?" Ron asked, a bit annoyed.

"No, we are not," Hermione answered a bit lamely. "It was nothing, believe me."

"That's why you stopped talking about it when I come in," Ron retorted.

Hermione sighed. "Okay, you are right, but it's not as you think. There's something we wanted to keep from you, but not because we don't want you to know." After hesitating, she added: "See, I don't want to worry you with such things, as you have just recovered."

"Hermione, will you cut it out?" Ron said in semi-affectionate impatience. He believed her – it was just like Hermione to keep a secret because she believed it might be good for someone else not to know what was going on. "I told you about a million times that I feel perfectly well now, and that you don't have to tiptoe around me anymore. I'm sorry, Loremistress Granger, but you have cured me too well to be worrying about me now."

Hermione sighed. "And I told you a million times that I am not a Loremistress, nor am I likely to ever achieve that status," she replied pompously. 

Ron saw Harry rolling his eyes. Of course, Harry thought the two of them were fighting, when in reality they were only playing a game they had relished for years.

"So what _were_ you talking about?" he asked.

Harry was the one to answer him. "Ron, do you remember visiting Remus Lupin some time ago, asking him about his sickness and putting something into his tea that made him bright red?"

"You put something into his tea?" Ron asked, thinking hard. The last few months remained a blur to him. He faintly remembered drinking tea with Lupin when suddenly their former teacher had turned bright red, but that was about all he could recall.

"We were wondering whether he was the real Lupin, or whether he was a Polyjuice impostor," Harry said. "That's why we gave him a Litmus Potion. He wasn't, though, because the potion made him turn red, not green."

Ron nodded. "But why did you think he was an impostor in the first place?" he asked.

He saw Hermione and Harry exchange glances. They had discussed all this in front of him, he realised, and now they were worried by the fact he did not remember.

"I'm fine, okay?" he said a little more sharply than he had meant to. "I've only forgotten a few things, that's all."

"We were worried about Sirius," Harry explained. "Lupin and Sirius are supposed to have split up in America to look for Wormtail, but there was something fishy about the story."

Hermione nodded. "After we gave him the potion, we were convinced Lupin couldn't be taking Polyjuice Potion, and that eased our worries. But now…." She shrugged. "See, I talked to Aisha this morning – you know, one of Professor Varlerta's Muggle friends. She asked me about Lupin, about trying to give him the panacea again to cure him. I suppose the two of them are some kind – well, I suspect they may be a couple. So Aisha asked me when I was going to try again, and I told her I couldn't at the moment, because the moon was full, and he was a werewolf. Then Aisha asked whether we couldn't give the panacea to him during the daytime, when he was human." 

Hermione ran a hand through her cloud of freshly washed hair; then she continued: "I told her that when he was a werewolf, he was a wolf day _and_ night, sleeping during the day and awake at night. She said that couldn't be, as she had just talked to him, and he was still in his human shape. I said that wasn't possible, because the moon had been full yesterday, too, but she insisted he'd been with her. That's why I'm worrying again now. If Lupin's not a werewolf during the day, something's not right here."

"Are you sure?" Ron asked. "Have you ever seen him as a wolf during the daytime?"

"The only time we've seen him as a wolf is the night we met Sirius," Harry reminded them. "Lupin was human then, and as soon as the moon came out, he turned into a werewolf. Maybe Aisha's right."

"That's not possible – I've checked the relevant books again," Hermione replied predictably. "That night was the first night of the full moon; otherwise, Lupin wouldn't have been human when he met us in the Shrieking Shack. Also, if he didn't turn into a wolf during the daytime, why would he always have been sick when he was teaching us? Don't you remember? Snape had to step in for him."

"She's right," Harry said to Ron. 

Ron nodded. "Admittedly, something's funny here," he agreed.

"Why don't we go and check on him now?" Harry asked. "We just drop in on him and see whether or not he is a wolf."

"Are you crazy?" Hermione asked. "What if he attacks us?"

"As a wolf? Harry asked. "If he is really Lupin, he's probably taken his potion and is harmless. If he isn't, well, I suppose we three have learned enough to deal with him."

"Yes, let's go," Ron said. Since he was well again, he was bursting with energy, and dying to spend it.

Hermione shrugged. "I suppose it's no more dangerous than the thing we usually do," she said.

Harry, Hermione and Ron went to Lupin's room right next to the Alchemists' Lab. They knocked, but received no answer. After knocking again, Hermione asked: "Do you think we should break in?"

Ron nodded; they had come to find out. "Do your _Alohorama_," he suggested to Hermione.

"_Alohorama_!" Hermione's wand was pointed at the door. Nothing happened.

"_Ajarouvertissima_!" Hermione insisted. This time, the door swung open. Hermione snorted. "That's a feeble protection spell if it gives in to my second try," she commented. Harry and Ron exchanged glances. Why did Lupin need a protection spell on his door? Then again, Ron thought, it might be explained by the fact that Lupin was wanted by the Ministry.

Holding their wands ready, the three of them tentatively stepped into the room. There was no wolf curled up under Lupin's desk – only a dark-haired young woman lying in Lupin's bed by herself, staring at them.

"It's not polite breaking into other people's rooms," Aisha said, pulling the covers up around her naked shoulders. Ron's impulse was to apologise and flee, but Hermione did not look apologetic in any way.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, frowning.

"Lying in this bed," Aisha replied with dignity. "As opposed to you, I was invited to be here. What are _you_ doing here?"

"We are looking for Remus Lupin," Hermione replied, her chin up in the air. If she had called herself a Ministry official and drawn a badge to prove it, Ron would not have been overly surprised: Her whole posture and bearing suggested one who had every right in the world to question and to investigate. Of course, there was no Ministry anymore, at least not one that Ron accepted.

"Remus isn't here anymore," Aisha said. "It was getting late, so he had to go away to a hiding place to become a werewolf."

"That can't be true," Hermione objected. "If he really _is_ Remus Lupin, he must have been a wolf the whole day. If he's been with you in his human form today, it means you have been with somebody else, somebody who is a spy and a traitor."

"Oh, so either I'm a pervert or my lover is a traitor?" Aisha retorted; her eyebrows tilted upwards. "That's really rich, young lady." 

Hermione sighed. "I don't mean to insult anyone. All I want is to find out what there is to know about Remus Lupin. Where is he?"

"I told you, he's hiding elsewhere. I've never been there – it's a place outside the castle, he told me," Aisha replied. "He said he's got to get away from people when he's a wolf, because it might be dangerous. Also, he says he's got to hide because he is still wanted by the Ministry."

"So how does he get to this hiding place then? I heard he can't leave his room here because he mustn't be seen," Hermione commented.

"Oh, that's easy – he's got his –" Aisha clamped a hand over her mouth. "Well, what I _wanted_ to tell you is that he said he was hiding in some kind of _shack_." 

"The Shrieking Shack," Ron exclaimed. Harry and Hermione turned to him; both nodded vigorously.

"We are going there to find him," Harry said. As often, he had made up his mind in a matter of seconds, Ron thought. When Harry turned towards the door, both Ron and Hermione were ready to follow him.

"Hey, where are you going – what do you want with Remus?" Aisha asked. "You've got to be careful. At this time of night, he is bound to be dangerous."

Without paying any heed to her, Harry, Hermione and Ron left the room.

"Let's not rush headfirst into a dangerous situation," Hermione admonished the two of them outside. "If some spy of Lord Voldemort is posing as Lupin, he will be dangerous. Maybe we should tell a teacher."

"Oh, Hermione, we are pretty much adults now," Ron told her. "Think of all the things we have done up to now. Do you really think we still need a teacher to protect us? I mean, he is on his own, and there are three of us."

"But if he is a servant of Lord Voldemort…." Hermione hesitated.

"A lot of the people we dealt with were servants of Lord Voldemort," Harry reminded her. "I even fought with him directly a few times, and I always got away. With the three of us, catching the spy and bringing him to Dumbledore won't be too difficult." 

Ron could tell that Hermione was still worried, but as he and Harry insisted that almost six years at Hogwarts entirely qualified them for catching spies, she finally gave in. The three of them fetched their cloaks; Hermione also remembered to bring a pencil to Engorge and use on the Whomping Willow. Then they went outside into the windy and rainy evening.

They did not notice Aisha until they had poked the root of the Whomping Willow with Hermione's magically enlarged pencil. When the tree suddenly stopped whipping and beating about, the gasp behind them alerted them to her presence. Obviously, not one of them had ever looked back (behind them), so Aisha had been able to follow them unnoticed.

"What are you doing here?" Harry asked.

"You are not going there without me," Aisha said indignantly. She was dressed in black denims and a worn leather jacket; the wind was whipping her short hair across her scalp.

"Go back to the castle – it's too dangerous for you," Harry told her.

Aisha snorted. "You don't understand, do you?" she asked. "He's my lover. I'm not afraid _of_ him, I'm afraid _for_ him. I want to know what's going on."

"Didn't you say it's too dangerous for you to be with him if he's a werewolf?" Hermione asked. 

Aisha shook her head. "No, in fact I didn't. For one thing, I'm sure he's drunk his potion, and for another, he gave me this thing here." She pulled a small, old-fashioned handgun from her jacket's pocket. "It's got a silver bullet in it. He said that if I ever was really, really in danger of being bitten by him, I should stop him with this thing."

Hermione recoiled from the gun. Ron was sure he knew what she was thinking. If they were mistaken for some obscure reason, if Remus Lupin, the werewolf, had really given his lover a handgun with a silver bullet, he was putting her life over his – a surely noble deed.

Behind them, the Whomping Willow started whipping again; Ron had to pull Hermione aside to keep her from being hit.

"Let's get going, then," he said.

"I'm coming with you," Aisha said. "You can't keep me from it."

"Yes, we can," Ron said and raised his wand. 

Hermione raised her hand to stop him. "You are an adult, so I'm sure you know best," she addressed Aisha. "I strongly recommend you to stay here, or even better, to go inside where you are safe. However, if you insist, we will not use our magic to stop you."

Ron shrugged and put his wand back into his pocket. When Hermione gave the Whomping Willow's knotty root another prod, Harry, Ron and Aisha followed her into the passage that opened beneath it.

The secret passage strongly reminded Ron of that night almost three years ago, the night they had met Sirius. So strongly did he recall the events of that night that his leg seemed to remember the pain he had felt when it had been broken. His first trip through the passage, being pulled through the darkness, had been agonizing, but on the way back he had walked upright, supported by a splint, by the light of illuminated wands. Now Harry's and his wand lighted the way again. Ron watched his two friends share a glance; he was sure Hermione and Harry were thinking of the night they had come to his rescue, too. 

"I wish we had the Invisibility Cloak," Harry said softly as they were nearing the end of the passage. 

"I can't believe you misplaced it," Hermione whispered

"I didn't – it was stolen," Harry insisted stubbornly. "Anyway, the three of us wouldn't fit underneath anymore, let alone the four of us." His eyes flitted to Aisha, who was walking beside them in silence. 

"We just have to be extremely quiet now," Hermione whispered and opened the trapdoor.

Inside the Shrieking Shack, there was the same disorder they had seen three years ago – broken furniture, ripped wallpaper, and a thick layer of dust only disturbed by a footpath leading from the trapdoor to the door – a footpath made by human feet, Ron noticed.

Tiptoeing on their soft-soled sneakers, all of them went out the door and into the hallway. From upstairs, they could hear male voices – _two_ male voices.

"He's not alone," Hermione breathed. "I think we should turn around and go for help." 

"It's only two people," Harry whispered back. "We still outnumber them. Let's go and get them."

"You are crazy – that's far too dangerous," Hermione replied as quietly as she could. "Think of Aisha – she might get hurt." She shot the Muggle woman a meaningful look. "And think of Ron – he's just recovered!"

"I'm fine," Ron whispered indignantly. "I can cope with whoever is up there." With these words, he pulled his wand out of his pocket to show he was ready for action.

"See," Harry said to Hermione. "We are ready to fight. Aren't you? Just remember that if we are right, this scum probably harmed Sirius and Lupin."

Hermione nodded grimly; she seemed to reconsider for a moment. "All right," she finally whispered back. "But only if she goes back into the passage." She pointed at Aisha.

"I'm no safer in the passage than with you," Aisha whispered back, "and I can't get by that blasted tree by myself. I'll stay with you. You can't order me around."

Hermione sighed. "Do whatever you please. I can't guarantee your safety, though. If you get hurt, you get hurt." 

Ron, Harry and Hermione exchanged glances, perhaps even the tiniest of nods. Then they snuck up the stairs, testing each single stair to see if it squeaked. Slowly, they edged their way upstairs. An Invisibility Cloak would have come in handy, Ron had to concede. It was hard to believe that somebody had stolen it from Harry's trunk.

In front of the door, the four of them stopped. The two men's voices could be heard clearly now, even though it was impossible to make out what they were saying. Harry pointed his wand at the door. 

"We'll run in, surprise them and then stun them," he whispered. Hermione nodded grimly; at last, she pulled her wand out, too. Ron also gave Harry a nod of agreement. They were ready for action. Harry took a deep breath; then he blasted the door open with a spell.

Three "_Stupefy_!" spells were deflected by a protective field around the two wizards who had been sitting at the table. Now they jumped up, wands in their hands, and approached the intruders. One of them was Lupin, entirely human, and looking quite angry. The other one Ron, too, recognised at once. It was Peter Pettigrew. 


	27. Harry

27 – Harry 

"You!" Harry shouted, and shot a hex at Pettigrew. Of course, the hex was deflected by the two wizards' protective field. Hermione, however, was murmuring an incantation, he noticed; she was probably trying to deactivate their protection. Harry jumped to her side; he knew that she was defenceless while incantating, which meant he had to shield her. Ron was at their side, casting a random array of counter-hexes to keep the two wizards from harming them: Lupin and Pettigrew were shooting some colourful flashes in their direction. Harry tried to build up a protective shield himself, even though he knew it was probably beyond his magical abilities. 

Just as the protective wall around Lupin and Pettigrew was thinning, Ron shot a hex at Peter Pettigrew. With a rapid movement of his wand, Pettigrew reflected the hex – but only barely. Harry magically intensified and confirmed his protective shield – it was feeble and two-dimensional, but better than nothing. In the meantime, Hermione attacked the false Lupin, shooting invisible chords at him. Lupin struggled briefly, but managed to throw them off before they could take their final shape. Harry decided it would be his job to uphold the protective shield in this fight: If he could keep Pettigrew and the false Lupin from harming the three of them, Ron and Hermione would have much better chances at Stunning, Disarming or even harming them. His two friends were fighting tooth and nail – and if he wasn't mistaken, they were making good headway. Again he saw the false Lupin throw off Hermione's chords, but this time, the wizard seemed to have more problems defending himself against Hermione's attack than the first time.

Suddenly, a scream pierced the slightly smoky air of the Shrieking Shack. Involuntarily, Harry glanced towards Peter Pettigrew. The stocky, balding wizard had managed to tie up Aisha with his own magical chords; he had grabbed her around the neck and was holding a wand to her temple.

"Throw us your wands, or she will suffer," he snarled. Then, without waiting for a reply, he shouted: "_Crucio_!" Aisha let out a bloodcurdling scream of pain. 

"Stop it, Peter," the false Lupin said, at the same time drawing up a new protective field that looked as solid as their first one. "Let her go. We are fighting children here. There's no need to take hostages." He was still feeding power to their protection; Harry realised the two of them would be hard to beat now.

"She will suffer," Pettigrew insisted. His high-pitched voice had a slightly insane quality to it. "Make sure the kids know how much she will suffer, Rom." 

The wizard addressed as 'Rom' narrowed his eyes at his partner. "Let her go, Peter," he hissed. "We can cope without a hostage. You know that Muggles do not usually survive a Cruciatus curse."

Aisha, bound into immobility, was writhing and whimpering in Pettigrew's grip. Ron and Harry shot another couple of curses against the protective field, but with 'Rom' holding up the protection, they did not see any chance of hurting either of the two wizards. 

"Throw us your wands, or I'll finish her off right now," Pettigrew spat at them. 

Harry did not want Aisha harmed, but he was sure that if the three of them voluntarily gave up their wands, they would be killed, too. "Let her go and give us _your_ wands, and we will let you get away alive," he retorted, just to have some kind of reply.

Pettigrew raised his wand in a deft movement; Aisha moaned in pain. Harry felt his heart miss a beat. Would he see Aisha die now? Helplessly he threw another jinx at the protective field; so did Ron and Hermione. The field did not waver for a second. There seemed nothing the three of them could do for Aisha. 

"_Stupefy_!" Hit in the face by the false Lupin's Stunning spell, Peter Pettigrew keeled over backwards and hit his head hard on the floor. With two steps, 'Rom' had reached the sobbing Aisha. He freed her with a wave of his wand, kneeled down and put his arms around her.

Devoid of his attention, the protective shield had weakened. Hermione annihilated it with a well-aimed spell; Ron Summoned the wand of the unconscious Peter Pettigrew. With a quick "_Expelliarmus_," Harry disarmed the kneeling wizard who was stroking Aisha's hair now. The false Lupin looked up at him for a moment only; there was something like resignation in his eyes. Still, he was trying to soothe the crying Muggle woman in his arms. Harry could barely make out her words: 

"You're with the enemy, you're with the enemy," she was sobbing desperately and at the same time accusingly. The false Lupin, 'Rom,' made soothing noises and stroked her hair again, but he did not deny her accusation.

"Get up, hands over your head," Harry said coldly to him. He came a step closer, pointing his wand at the wizard; Harry and Hermione followed suit, making sure there was no escape. Disarmed, 'Rom' could hardly defend himself any longer or keep them from taking him to Dumbledore. 

"I will have to go now, darling," the wizard said softly to the Muggle woman. Then he obeyed Harry by getting to his feet and holding his hands up, showing that he was unarmed now. "I'm ready," he told them tonelessly.

Hermione cast a sticky, magical chord around the false Lupin's wrists, and then, thorough as she was, proceeded to wrap Pettigrew into a tight cocoon, prohibiting any kind of motion in case he should wake up. Ron was holding 'Rom' at wand-point, looking positively dangerous. Tearfully, Aisha stared at them. 

"Who are you?" Harry asked fiercely. It was strange to point a wand at a face he had always liked and trusted.

"Romulus Lupin," the wizard replied quietly, with a sidelong glance at the crying Aisha.

"Remus never mentioned that he had a twin," Hermione retorted, frowning.

"As far as I know, he never knew I was alive until recently," the wizard answered. "I think my uncle, who raised me, told them I was killed by the same werewolf that hurt me." 

"Remus and Romulus, the wolf twins," Hermione murmured. "How fitting."

Romulus sighed. "My father came from a long line of wolf charmers, which was, I think, the cause for his sons coming in contact with a werewolf in the first place. My uncle thought they were irresponsible, so he 'adopted' me and told them I was chewed up, I suppose." Looking up at his tied-up wrists, he asked:

"Look, can we maybe have this conversation some place else? It seems I will have to be officially questioned and everything, so I don't quite have the nerve to chatter now." 

Right, Harry remembered: This wizard who had been fighting alongside with Peter Pettigrew had to be a servant of Lord Voldemort. For a moment he had been fascinated by his story, but now he remembered that this wizard was his enemy.

"Let's go and bring them to Dumbledore," he said to Ron and Hermione.

"_Mobilicorpus_," Hermione hissed, casting a hateful glance at the unconscious Pettigrew. The wizard rose up like a string-less puppet and hovered in front of her.

"Get going," Ron said to Lupin and poked his wand into the wizard's ribs. Held at wandpoint by Harry and Ron, the wizard followed Hermione and Pettigrew out of the room. Aisha brought up the rear, wiping her eyes.

As they descended the stairs, Hermione did little to prevent the limp Pettigrew bumping into the ceiling. More than ever, the situation felt like a dejá-vu to Harry. Only on that night almost three years ago, the _real_ Lupin had been present – and Sirius.

"Sirius!" he suddenly exclaimed. "Where is Sirius – and where is your brother?"

"They are with some friends of mine," Romulus replied. "They are held there, but they weren't harmed – besides a little blackmail so Sirius wouldn't betray me over the phone talking to you or to his lover."

"What did you do to them?" Harry hissed. Once more he realised that this wizard, even though he looked like the Lupin he knew, was not to be trusted.

"Nothing, really," Romulus replied. "We didn't hurt them; we just needed them out of the way."

They were entering the secret passage. Pettigrew's head was scraping the low ceiling. Harry felt another blast of hatred. If it hadn't been for Wormtail, Sirius would have been cleared that night, and Harry could have lived with him all these years. If it hadn't been for Wormtail, his parents would be alive today.

Ron must have seen his glance, because he said: "We'll bring them to Dumbledore, Harry –_he_'ll deal with this scum."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the Entrance Hall, they ran into Flitwick, who emitted a yelp of shock upon seeing the unconscious Pettigrew and the tied-up Lupin.

"What funny business is this?" he squeaked. "What happened to Remus? And where did you find Peter Pettigrew? They must be taken to Dumbledore immediately."

"That's what we are planning to do," Hermione replied. "By the way, this is not Remus Lupin, but a spy of Voldemort posing as him. We saw him plotting with Wormtail."

Flitwick nodded and took out his wand, probably fearing that Harry, Hermione and Ron were not qualified for keeping both of their prisoners in check. "I am coming with you."

"Fizzing Whizzbees," Flitwick said to the gargoyle when they had arrived at Dumbledore's office, and the door opened for them. All of them went inside, Hermione still levitating Wormtail, Aisha sneaking in with everybody else.

"Albus," Flitwick piped excitedly before anyone else could get in a word, "Pettigrew has been caught." 

The Headmaster, in spite of his recovery still fragile-looking, put away his _Daily Prophet_ and cast a glance at the unconscious Wormtail over the rim of his half-moon spectacles. Then his eyes strayed to the tied-up Romulus.

"Remus?" he asked, tilting his eyebrows upwards.

"Romulus," Hermione corrected him. "Romulus Lupin, Remus' twin brother. I think he came to Hogwarts to spy."

Romulus, whose hands were still tied up above his head in a position which looked rather uncomfortable, stood straight and looked relatively dignified, considering his situation.

"The young lady speaks the truth – there is no point denying that," he said.

For a few seconds, Dumbledore said nothing. He got up and walked over to Romulus, scrutinizing him through his spectacles. "Romulus Lupin," he finally repeated softly. "You were officially declared dead thirty-five years ago."

"So I was," Romulus replied.

"Your name disappeared from the Hogwarts Book of Students after your parents reported you dead," Dumbledore stated, as if he wanted to deny Romulus' existence.

"I was brought to America, where I was raised and schooled," Romulus replied. "My uncle believed that my parents weren't fit to raise children if they could not even protect their sons from werewolves. He basically kidnapped me and let my parents believe I was eaten by the same werewolf that bit my brother, or so he always told me."

"Once more I've housed a traitor under my roof, and once more it was you, Harry, not me, who unmasked him," Dumbledore murmured so softly that Harry wondered if anyone else had heard him. "Maybe I _am_ loosing my grip." Louder, the Headmaster continued: "Are you a Death Eater?"

"No, not really," Romulus replied. "I was recruited as a spy because I look like my brother, but I did not swear loyalty to anybody."

Dumbledore's eyes narrowed at him. "Roll up your left sleeve."

"I haven't got a Dark Mark, if that's what you mean," Romulus replied, obeying. He had not lied: His lower left arm was smooth and unmarked. To prove his point, he also bared his right arm. "It wasn't too difficult convincing You-Know-Who that I had plenty to hide on my mission without such a little … _decoration_." 

"So you serve him," Dumbledore said tonelessly.

"Yes, I do," Romulus replied. "I mean, I did. I suppose the game is over now," he added with a false little laugh. For a short moment, his eyes strayed over to Aisha. Suddenly Harry saw fear in his face. He realised that the wizards they had caught were awaiting punishment.

"How could you, you asshole?" Aisha suddenly broke out. Harry saw Flitwick flinch at the profanity. Romulus also flinched, but maybe not because of the swearword, but because of the hatred in his former lover's voice.

"You know that Voldemort guy hates us Muggles," Aisha continued, making Romulus flinch once more at the mentioning of the name. "You know he wants to turn us into slaves. How could you serve him and tell me you love me at the same time? That's abysmally stupid!"

"I admit falling in love with you was highly unprofessional," Romulus replied quietly, avoiding her eyes. "This is not my first job as a spy, but the first one I totally botched up. It also will be the last one, I suppose – I don't think I'll get another chance."

"Because of the current political situation, we will have to set up a little court for you here at Hogwarts," Dumbledore replied. "There, we can discuss your crimes, and also those of your –" for a fleeting second, his face was distorted by rage, "companion. What was _he_ doing here, by the way?"

"He was my contact person," Romulus replied. "He came by to exchange information with me, usually at the time of the full moon when I had to go into hiding anyway. He helped me a lot with finding my way around this castle, as I am supposed to know the place but have never been here before. Also, he knew many of the teachers and students, both from his time as a student and his time as a rat. Without him, I would have never been able to pose as my brother." 

"Where is Remus now?" Dumbledore asked quietly.

"My brother and his friend, Sirius, are hidden with friends of mine," Romulus replied. 

"Death Eater friends," Dumbledore concluded.

Romulus shook his head. "No, I have managed to prevent this. I don't know my brother very well, but I have no reason to hate him. I don't want him harmed. If You-Know-Who got his hands on my brother, he would probably try to get me into his power by threatening him. I didn't want that, so I never told You-Know-Who's followers their exact whereabouts."

"You are trying to outsmart everyone, it seems," Dumbledore mused. "However, we might profit from this. Can you tell your 'friends' to set Sirius and Remus free?"

"What about cutting a deal here?" Romulus replied. "My life against theirs?"

"So you can return Voldemort and tell him everything you have learned here?" Dumbledore asked, his white, bushy eyebrows raised. "Mind you, he might not be happy to welcome you back into his rows when he learns that you have freed Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, and that your mission here has resulted in the capture of _him_." He pointed briefly at Wormtail, whose unconsciousness was conspicuously long lasting. Harry suddenly felt cold. He had encountered his fair share of traitors at Hogwarts, but never before had one fallen into Dumbledore's hands; most of them had conveniently deceased. What would Dumbledore do with Wormtail now that they had caught him? Would he hurt him, maybe even kill him? Azkaban was no safe place to keep him after Lucius Malfoy's takeover – that much was sure.

"You may be right about You-Know-Who – he might not welcome me back. So, what are you planning to do with me now?" Romulus inquired.

"This has to be decided not by me alone," Dumbledore replied. "For now, you will be kept here at the castle, under supervision. We will question you and your companion. At any rate, we want Sirius and Remus set free. Your cooperation in that matter will strongly influence the way you will be treated by our court."

"Court!" Romulus snorted. "I know I am in no position to argue, but I still think you should avoid using that word if all you plan to do is decide on my fate with a couple of fellow conspirators against the current government. If you were keeping on the side of the law, you would have no need of such an atrocity."

"We do not accept the current government for various reasons here at Hogwarts, as you should know, as we discussed matters with you when we still believed you our friend," Dumbledore replied. Flitwick nodded vigorously, looking a bit hurt. 

"All the old structures of wizard society and of our Ministry are being changed; officials and judges are being replaced by our political opponents," Dumbledore continued. "There is no way we will accept any court whose officials are controlled by Lord Voldemort. In case you haven't realised it, your spy mission has landed you in the middle of something that may very well become a civil war." 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry, Ron and Hermione spent the rest of the evening discussing the things they had seen and heard. It felt so good to be together with them again, to have Ron back, and, in a way, to have Hermione back, too: Now that the panacea was completed, she actually seemed to permit herself a bit of a rest. True, she made Ron and Harry do a minimum of schoolwork shortly before bedtime, and she asked Ron whether he was following the revision table she had set up for him. However, if she hadn't at least mentioned schoolwork at some point, Harry would have worried about her health.

With Hermione and Ron, Harry felt, he could not only share fun times, but also most of his worries. The political situation scared him, and Dumbledore's words scared him even more. Practising wanded combat was all very well, and today Ron, Hermione and he had proved they were up to fighting against grown wizards. They might have lost the fight if Lupin hadn't turned against Pettigrew, but they also might have won it – there was no way to tell. However, a war wasn't only about fighting and winning, it was about killing. He couldn't imagine fighting against other witches or wizards with the intention of killing them – against Voldemort, yes, but Voldemort wasn't human anymore. He wasn't a person of flesh and blood, a man or woman with feelings and hopes and dreams. No, Harry would not have minded killing Voldemort – but he did not want to point his wand at somebody else to kill him or her. Ron and Hermione felt the same. Ron, of course, was optimistic; he said he could not believe things would get that bad. Hermione only shook her head in doubt. Harry suspected that she believed the opposite.

When Ron yawned heartily and announced that he was heading up to the dormitory, both Harry and Hermione agreed that it was bedtime. Ron, who had put in some extra Quidditch practise earlier that day (much, much earlier – a century seemed to lie between morning and evening), went straight up the stairs. Harry, however, had yet to pack his books. He found Hermione, who had already stacked her many books into a neat pile, lingering behind, too. She seemed impatient, almost as if she wanted Harry to leave.

"Are you coming up?" Harry asked.

"Er, in a minute, I've got to – there's some homework I've forgotten," she replied, not looking at him.

"Nonsense, you never forget any of your homework," Harry said, not because he wanted to accuse her of lying, but because it was the first thing that came to his mind.

Hermione blushed. "Well, now I did. My Arithmancy homework, in fact. Just go ahead, it'll only take a couple of minutes.

Harry's curiosity had been awakened, but he did not want to argue with her, so he bid her goodnight and walked out the door to the stairs that led to the dormitory. When he had walked up a bit, however, he suddenly on impulse removed his shoes and tiptoed back down again. Sneaking a glance through the door, he saw Hermione, not seated at the table to do her Arithmancy homework, but wearing a cloak and opening the portrait hole.

"Hermione, where are you going?" he hissed.

She turned around, blushing, maybe out of embarrassment, maybe out of anger. "Are you spying on me, Harry Potter?" she hissed.

Walking up to her, he replied: "Generally not, but when you are getting into trouble, I suppose I'd better."

"I'm not getting into trouble," Hermione retorted.

"Well, you are certainly about to leave the castle at a time when it's against the rules, and you are not telling us where you are going," Harry replied. 

Hermione made a face, but remained mute.

"See, I don't want to spy on you, or meddle with things that are none of my business," Harry said to soothe her. "I just wish you'd trust us enough to share your worries with us, just like we trust you."

She came up to him and laid a hand on his arm. "I do trust you," she replied unhappily. "It's just – just that I _promised_ to keep something secret. I believe the secret would be safe with you two, but a promise is a promise, right?"

He didn't like her to look so crushed, so he said: "It's okay. I only hope that if you need us, you will come to us for help."

Hermione made a strange, little noise in her throat; then she suddenly hugged Harry fiercely and buried her face in his shoulder for a moment. "You two are the best friends in the world," she whispered. Then she let him go, turned around and left through the portrait hole without another word.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day after classes, Harry looked around the grounds for the Thestral. He hadn't seen the winged stallion for a while – not since Ron had been cured, in fact. Of course, that was not unusual – the Thestral disappeared for a couple of days every now and then, or maybe it just remained invisible, you never knew. Harry was starting to miss his magical half-pet, though – it had been away for longer than usual now. He would have fancied a ride through the gale on the wild flyer, but had to accept that there would be no ride today.

On his way back to the castle, he passed the Quidditch pitch. The Ravenclaw team was just finishing practice. Harry could see Cho's arched dive from the sky right to the door of the changing rooms. He held his breath for a moment while watching her. First she was a flash of blue and silver robes, her long, dark hair flying behind her; then, slowing in her descent, she became the beautiful girl he knew, a girl who noticed him and managed a merry wave to him even in the middle of her dive. She had never flown better, Harry decided; nor had she ever looked better.

Harry had homework to do, but decided it wasn't so much that he was in any kind of hurry, so he waited by the edge of the pitch for her. Not long after, Cho emerged with the rest of her team, dressed in casual robes, her hair still moist from a shower. Seeing Harry, she beamed and walked over to him.

"Hi Cho," he said, "I see you have recovered your flying skills." He could have bit off his tongue. Why did he have to sound like Percy Weasley now?

Cho grinned at his words, but not in a mean way. Then her smile softened. "Yes, I'm better," she said. "Thanks to Hermione. And thanks to you, Harry."

"I haven't done anything for the panacea," Harry protested. 

"Yes, but you've done a lot for me," Cho said softly. "You were always there when I needed you." Her slanted eyes met his. Harry felt very hot all of a sudden. Did panaceas undo the effect of evil love potions, too?

"Want to go for a walk?" he asked,  for lack of a better reply.

Cho nodded. In silence, they rounded the lake. When they were nearing the forest, Harry felt Cho's hand dangling idly against his. He could hear the blood pounding in his ears. Should he take her hand? He wasn't sure. He tried to relax, to dangle his hand idly against hers in turn, but somehow he was sure that whatever he was conveying with his touch, it wasn't ease. Finally, he took her hand, but apparently with such a sudden movement that Cho started. He turned to face her and at the same time tried to remove the cause of her fright, but found that her fingers had closed around his, and that she was smiling.

"You're not… I mean, not anymore…." He didn't know how to phrase his question, as he was unwilling to mention Snape's name in her presence. Nevertheless, she understood him.

"No, not anymore," she replied. Her eyes were shining. 

"Do you…." He felt his face grow hot. He had to ask now, or he would never dare to ask her again. "Do you think you could like _me_?"

"I do," she replied, looking into his eyes. 

Knowing what was expected of him, he put his hand on her shoulder, pulled her towards him and kissed her. At first, he kissed her with his eyes and lips firmly closed, but then, with a bit of guidance from Cho, he opened his lips just a tiny little bit and experienced something that was completely new to him. Unlike Harry, who had never tasted a girl this way before, Cho appeared to know what she was doing. Harry banned all thoughts of Cedric Diggory from his mind. This was his hour; for years, he had waited and longed for this. He relished in the feel of her lips and tongue, in the smell of her hair, in running his hands over her shoulders and back. Cho drew close to him. He felt the warmth grow between their bodies. 

Grinning, Cho drew her face away from his. "You seem to have waited for this a very, _very_ long time, Harry Potter," she said, rubbing the lower part of her body against his in a playful manner.

Harry felt his face grow even hotter than before. There was nothing he could say. The reaction of his body to her closeness was nothing he could control.

"Have you ever …?" Cho asked, her eyebrows raised.

Had he ever – what? Kissed a girl? Seen a naked girl before? _Touched_ a naked girl? Harry had once kissed Cho before, about a year ago, but that couldn't possibly count, because she probably remembered this incidence herself.

"No," he replied quietly, wishing for a moment he had slept around in Gryffindor Tower just to seem more experienced now. "Have you?"

"Not _really_," Cho replied, rubbing her nose playfully against his.

Harry wondered briefly what 'not _really'_ meant, and whether he should worry about knowing apparently less about this important matter than she did. However, when Cho's lips touched his again, he decided that this certainly wasn't the time to worry about anything, about anything at all.


	28. Snape

28 - Snape 

"Listen, I have a job to do, and I was permitted to take you with me."

Snape looked up at Evnissyen from his half-shredded roots. "Oh, were you? What kind of job?" Getting out of the Slytherin Mansion for once was an exciting prospect.

"I was asked to meet someone in a Muggle bar. It's the kind of job that's traditionally assigned to a pair of Death Eaters, just in case something nasty happens, so I need a partner," Evnissyen responded while straightening the line of empty vials waiting to be filled with the poison they were brewing.

"Sure." Snape was curious – who were they meeting, for what reason, and why in a Muggle bar? However, he knew better than to ask unnecessary questions. If Evnissyen took him on a mission, it was a sign of trust. He had no desire to diminish that trust by inquiring further. All information he needed would be supplied in time, and everything he – or maybe the Dark Lord – considered none of Snape's business would remain undisclosed to him anyway. The only question he felt was safe to ask was: "When are we going? Do we have to adjust our potions schedule?"

Evnissyen shook his head. "I shouldn't think so. You said this will only take another forty minutes."

"You mean we are going tonight?" Snape fought to keep his root-shredding hands dead steady.

"Absolutely. I'll have some clothes sent to you so you can blend in with the Muggles. Now, the dried Belladonna leaves have to be boiled?"

"Soaked," Snape corrected him.

Supper was taken early in the Slytherin mansion. Snape and Evnissyen had finished and bottled their work and would be at liberty to go about their mission, of which Snape knew no more than he had in the afternoon. When Snape entered the dining hall, his grey-haired partner was nowhere to be seen; perhaps he had preparations to do for their evening excursion. However, Snape bumped into Lucius Malfoy, who was carrying one of the small crates Snape had just packed with vials full of cauldron-fresh poison.

"Severus – I am overjoyed to see you are finally doing something useful," Malfoy said with his usual honey-glazed venom, a glance down at his crate indicating that Snape's usefulness was of personal relevance to him.

"Lucius – I am glad I can supply the tools you need for your post as Britain's Minister of Magic," Snape replied, equally glancing down at the crate of deadly poison. "I heard you are doing some _cleansing_ at the Ministry."

Malfoy frowned; admittedly, the remark had not been made in complete innocence. To mollify him, Snape continued: "Please give my regards to your son – I hope he is still faring well at Durmstrang.

Without further warning, the crate exploded. Glass shards, wooden splinters and drops of corrosive poison showered through the air. Although he deftly sprang aside and tried to duck for cover, Snape was hit in four places; two of them burned like molten lead had dropped on his skin. Around him, screams of pain could be heard. Snape ran down to the potions dungeon as fast as possible. Knowing that a sick mediwizard was no good to anyone, he tended his own wounds first, neutralising the corrosive effects of the poison with one potion and achieving instant healing with another. Then he quickly packed his remedies and ran up again. He dished out cotton balls soaked in different potions to all those whose injuries were small; for young Rookwood, whose eyes had been in contact with the corrosive material, his neutraliser came just in time. Some Death Eaters looked upon his help with suspicion, probably still believing him a traitor, but as there was no other remedy available, they all accepted it in the end. Within fifteen minutes, order was re-installed in the dining hall. Death Eaters were sitting back down again to consume their food, knowing that the Dark Lord was not fond of any kind of disorder in his house: Even though the Dark Lord, who never ate, did not usually enter the dining hall, he would certainly hear detailed accounts of everybody's behaviour later.

Snape looked around for Lucius Malfoy, who had caused the whole commotion. The explosion of the crate seemed an odd case of uncontrolled, unwanted magic, an accident which was not supposed to happen to any decently schooled adult wizard or witch. It could hardly, if at all, be excused by an extreme fit of wrath. However, Snape did not understand how he could have possibly angered the aristocratic, controlled Malfoy sufficiently to cause such a reaction. For this reason, he wished to apologise to Malfoy – he did not know what he had done wrong, but it was never good to have Lucius Malfoy for an enemy. However, his cursory glance over the crowded dining hall only revealed Evnissyen, who had taken Snape's former seat and was tucking into some stew. Snape went over to him and bossed Evnissyen's neighbour into moving aside on the bench to make some space for him to sit down.

"Where did Malfoy go?" Snape asked without further greeting.

"He steamed off," Evnissyen replied, frowning at Snape over his stew. "He told me I should keep a close watch on you, and I don't think he was worrying about your health."

Snape was confused. He still didn't understand what exactly had been his perilous mistake, but he knew that the dining hall was no place to discuss this matter. Therefore, he pulled over the bowl of stew – obnoxious stuff if you asked him – and filled his plate.

"We are meeting an informer at the Muggle bar," Evnissyen at last briefed Snape after supper. "A Death Eater has disappeared, and we fear that he was last seen at Hogwarts. Our informer has hinted that he might have heard of his whereabouts."

"Why meet at a Muggle bar?" Snape asked, trying to keep the curiosity out of his voice as well as possible.

"We have a custom of meeting informers on neutral territory – usually the Pentagram Bar in Knockturn Alley. Only lately, certain troublemakers, League members and the like, have started patrolling Knockturn Alley. Our informer is well known in certain circles; if he was seen in Knockturn Alley, especially the Pentagram Bar, he might –" Evnissyen paused for a moment to find a fitting euphemism, "stop being useful to us."

"What is my job during the mission?" Snape asked.

"Lookout wizard, bodyguard –" Evnissyen shrugged. "You really don't have to _do_ much – it's rather _being_ there that counts. It's supposed to be safer with two of us present. Of course, if it is a trap, two aren't nearly enough for a good and solid fight. Luckily, Muggle bars are relatively safe places. You know the lot of the enemy – they love their stupid old Muggles and are always afraid they might get hurt, so they don't stage their fights at Muggle places."

Snape nodded. He supposed he had learned all he would learn about the mission beforehand.

"We are leaving for London in about an hour and a half," Evnissyen told Snape. "Make sure you are dressed and ready by then."

Snape nodded and went off to clean the cauldrons in the potions dungeon. After about an hour, he went to his room and took another look at the clothes Evnissyen had sent him earlier in the afternoon. Without a trace of enthusiasm, he put them on. Trust his partner to find something that fitted him like a glove, he thought wryly as he pulled the tight black denims over his hips and struggled with the unfamiliar zipper. At least Evnissyen had had the decency of choosing a long-sleeved t-shirt for him: Sure, it was another piece of black Muggle clothing which revealed more of his body than it concealed, but at least his Dark Mark was covered. Well, it could be expected that Evnissyen knew better than to overlook such trivial points. There was no point in dressing up as Muggles for a secret mission at any rate if you were planning to rub your Dark Mark under everybody's nose.

After pulling on his heavy black boots, he braved a first look into the floor-length mirror which hung in the bathroom for reasons formerly unbeknown to him. It was even worse than he had feared. Although all essential parts of his body were covered by some kind of textile, he felt as if he was naked in the alien Muggle clothes. The tight Muggle trousers hugged his narrow hips tightly, mercilessly revealing how thin he was. Used to his billowing black robes, Snape found the t-shirt clinging to his body incredibly tight. He looked like a scarecrow nearing starvation, he found. Whenever he moved, some muscle on his chest stuck out in a most unbecoming way. It seemed as if the whole point of these clothes was to show the world he _had_ a body, something Snape had done his best to forget throughout his whole life.

A last look in the mirror convinced him that he could not possibly leave the room in these clothes, let alone show himself in public looking like this. He would have to apologise to Evnissyen, but nothing in the world would make him go to the Muggle club in such an outfit. Secret mission or not – he would wear the clothes he had worn all his life on it, or he would not go.

"Hey, Sev – looking good, I see." Evnissyen seemed in the best of moods. Like Snape, he was wearing black denims, biker boots and a black t-shirt; he had also donned a black leather jacket. Although he was almost six years older than Snape, he looked quite distinguished in Muggle clothing, Snape noticed – slightly alien, but, in contrast to him, not utterly ridiculous.

"I'm not going to wear these things," Snape said with insistence in his voice.

Evnissyen laughed, a deep, rolling laugh accompanied by an ice-blue twinkle in his eyes which almost painfully reminded Snape of somebody else.

"Afraid that the Muggle women will molest you too much if you go to a club looking _that_ sexy?" Evnissyen asked. There seemed to be no malice in his voice, but Snape was sure that the joke was at _his_ expense.

"Evnissyen, please spare me this," Snape implored. "You know I hate Muggle clothing, and you know that I – that I look nothing short of ridiculous in these clothes. There's got to be something less – _drastic_ for me to wear. If I can't go with you in normal, sensible robes, please let me wear one of these moderate black suits which Muggles normally wear."

Evnissyen laughed again. "Sev, our mission isn't taking place at a funeral, but at a club. Don't fuss about clothes – vanity doesn't suit you. Here, put on one of these, and maybe pull your hair back and put on some sunglasses, and you will feel like a different person." He handed Snape the leather jacket he had brought for him.

The jacket was slimly cut, but had a minimum of padding in the shoulders; Snape thought that it helped at least a little. Then he accepted a hairbrush and a rubber band from Evnissyen. Although he was not used to the garish Muggle custom, he managed to pull his black hair back into a ponytail tolerably well. Then Evnissyen reached into his jacket's pocket and took out three more hideous Muggle fashion accessories for Snape – a wristwatch, a pair of black sunglasses, and an oval silver pendant displaying a Celtic pattern, hung from a leather cord.

Snape turned the cheaply made piece of silver jewellery between his fingers. Then he looked back at his partner:

"Skin-tight clothing, a necklace and a ponytail, for evil's sake – are you sure you are not trying to make me dress up as a Muggle _woman_?"

Evnissyen chuckled. "You know virtually nothing about fashion, Sev," he simply replied. "See – I'm wearing a pendant, too." Snape could see a leather chord disappear into the neckline of Evnissyen's partially buttoned-up leather jacket.

Snape shrugged; complaining seemed of little use. He strapped the watch around his wrist, put on his sunglasses and hung the silver pendant around his neck. While his leather cord ran through his fingers, it seemed to Snape that he had once worn a similar thing around his neck, a kind of powerful talisman which he had lost somewhere, but he decided he had to be mistaken.

Before leaving the room with his partner, Snape cast another glance at himself in the floor-length mirror. He hardly recognised the person he saw. While at first, he had only seen a scrawny fool in ugly and unbecoming clothes, now he saw both of them, Evnissyen and him, two slim, dark figures looking positively _dangerous_ in their black leather and denim. For the fraction of a second, the thought caused a pleasurable jolt in his stomach, but he suppressed the odd feeling.

Snape and Evnissyen Apparated in the men's room at the Camden Palace, a Muggle club not overly far from Diagon Alley. Noisy and dark, it was a perfect place for meeting someone who was not supposed to be seen in Knockturn Alley, especially not in its slightly sleazy Slytherin hangout, the Pentagram Bar.

Snape could hardly suppress his excitement at the unexpected outing. In a way, it was like being on leave from prison. During the six months spent at the Slytherin Mansion, he had only been permitted to leave it twice before. In spite of all his apprehensions, he was curious: Never before had he been inside a Muggle club. Maybe they would even have a live rock band there. Snape faintly remembered that in a former part of his life, he had liked Muggle rock music. The sounds coming through the toilet's door sounded promising.

Evnissyen and Snape disentangled their limbs from each other, straightened out their clothes and left their cubicle. A Muggle in his late twenties, who had just been washing his hands, cast them a knowing glance. Snape raised a worried eyebrow at Evnissyen, but only received shrug for an answer. So what if the guy found their behaviour strange – he was only a Muggle, after all.

Leaving the men's room, they found themselves in an old theatre converted into a club – a huge, dark room telling tales of long-lost red velvet grandeur. Snape took off his sunglasses so he could take in more of his surroundings. The room's tapestries and draperies, its gilt statues and hints of stucco, had suffered the abuse of countless rude club-goers; an ever-present feeling of has-been hung in the smoky air. On the old stage, a metal band Snape didn't recognise was thrashing out their set; due to their substandard stage sound, he found it hard to tell whether they were any good at all. People were largely ignoring the band; they stood in groups, hid in nooks and theatre boxes for heavy kissing, or just leaned against walls, nursing drinks, staring into nothingness. Snape saw black leather and lace, heavily made-up faces and dyed hair done up with tons of hairspray; he saw silk corsets, heavy silver jewellery, tattoos and a wide array of pierced noses, eyebrows and lips. His own clothes, which he had assumed to be highly extravagant, if not deviant, were moderate, almost bland in comparison; even the Muggle males had done themselves up with great effort and imagination. Fascinated, Snape stared into the crowd.

"Like it?" Evnissyen grinned widely. "Go for it, Sev – it's never too late to enjoy puberty, if you ask me."

Self-consciously, Snape closed his mouth. He desperately racked his mind for a fitting response, but could come up with none.

"Let's get something to drink," Evnissyen suggested and steered into the direction of the bar, a blackened structure equipped with bar staff which looked positively dangerous. "What can I get you? Have you reached drinking age yet, Sev?"

"Cut it out," Snape snarled.

"Cider, then?" Evnissyen asked, clearly enjoying himself.

Asking for mead was probably pointless. "Pint of stout," Snape replied curtly, unwilling to give Evnissyen another chance to amuse himself at his expense.

Both made their way through the heavily crowded space in front of the bar. Evnissyen shouted his order over a couple of Muggle shoulders until one of the women behind the bar, characterised by Egyptian eyes and a large silver spike sprouting from her chin, took notice of him. While they were waiting for their drinks, a Muggle woman approached Snape. She had shiny red hair and was wearing a black, decidedly low-cut blouse revealing half of a dragon tattoo. The woman seemed to take Snape's measure with her eyes; then, completely unexpected for Snape, she touched his leather-clad arm.

"Hi, sweety – have a drink for a thirsty girl?"

Snape just stared at her. What in the world did she want from him? "We – we are getting our drinks over there…." he stuttered, looking helplessly in Evnissyen's direction. Was he really supposed to buy her a drink now? He didn't have any money; should he ask Evnissyen?

The woman laughed, a high, pearly sequence of sound that made Snape feel even less at ease. "Oh, you are the naïve type. Don't worry, I _love_ shy men." And with these words she disappeared into the crowd.

Smirking, Evnissyen gave Snape his stout and motioned for him to follow him. Confused as he was, Snape was intrigued by the mass of people, of warm, breathing bodies brushing against him, of kohl-rimmed eyes staring shamelessly into his. The smells of many perfumes and sometimes of sweat, the smoke of tobacco and cannabis tickled his fine-tuned nose. Over all these sensations lay the music, which due to its bad sound was largely characterised by its volume and throbbing bass drum. The whole room seemed to pulsate with it, with a beat of life that Snape had never tasted this way before.

Evnissyen lead Snape through the room to a small theatre box equipped with velvet curtains and gilt stucco. Inside the small, darkened space, a Muggle couple were caressing each other in a way that, in Snape's opinion, should have been confined to the privacy of a bedroom. Evnissyen frowned for a second; then he cast a quick spell Snape had never heard before. The Muggle man and woman jumped up; they stared at each other with utmost loathing. The woman adjusted her top; the man angrily wiped his mouth. They shared another look of mutual disgust; then both left the box in opposite directions.

"That's better," Evnissyen said and put his leather jacket on the box's empty seat. Snape followed suit; it was hot in the room. Then both wizards leant against the wall just outside it, glancing over the crowd of drinking and sometimes dancing Muggles.

A woman leaning against a pillar not far from Snape caught his attention. Her long black hair and her way of dressing reminded him remotely of Valerie, although their faces were not very alike. Noticing his glances, she gave him a luminous smile. He must have smiled back or at least given her some kind of encouraging look, because she came over to him, bringing a half-drunk, green cocktail with her.

"Hi," she said, ignoring Evnissyen, "all by yourself tonight?"

Receiving a slight kick against the ankle from Evnissyen, he replied: "I'm afraid I'm waiting for someone."

She pouted; without another word, she strode off.

"Are these – are these Muggle prostitutes?" Snape asked Evnissyen. He could think of no other explanation for the women's behaviour towards him.

"I shouldn't think so," Evnissyen replied. "It's not _that_ kind of place."

"So why do they talk to me like that?" Snape asked, completely at a loss.

Evnissyen grinned again. "They seem to think you are attractive, Sev."

'But I'm ugly,' Snape wanted to respond, but he didn't – it would have been pathetic to state the obvious. Both wizards stood in silence for a minute.

"Malfoy surely was in a bad temper today," Snape said, partly to turn the conversation to a less threatening subject, partly because his fellow Death Eater's earlier outbreak had scared him. "I know he's got a lot on his plate, but to me it seems he is really cracking now."

Evnissyen gave Snape one of his knowing looks, but he did not reply.

"There is something wrong – something nobody is telling me, because I am not to be trusted," Snape commented. That was how it had been these past months, and how it probably would be until the day he died: He could work for the Dark Lord, he could help put some of the Death Eaters' plans into action, but many things were kept secret from him. As an ex-traitor, he was simply not trustworthy enough to know anything important. He was used to that, had had to get used to it during the last months. Sometimes, however, he wished his curiosity could be satisfied.

Evnissyen sipped his drink, looking the other way. So there really was something he was not telling Snape. It would be best to leave things alone, Snape thought, but before he knew it, he was needling his partner:

"I suppose it's none of my business, but what had me worrying was the way Malfoy made the crate explode when I was asking about his _son_. You know, I used to teach Draco, and he was one of the most talented students I ever had. He certainly had an aptitude for potion-making. I would hate to hear that something has happened to him."

Evnissyen gave him a strange stare, the kind of stare that rather confirmed Snape's suspicions: There _was_ something wrong, something involving Lucius Malfoy's son, and Evnissyen wasn't telling him about it. Snape shrugged as a kind of reply, signalling that he accepted Evnissyen's refusal to talk.

For a while, the two wizards just sat there without talking. Snape lost himself in the throbbing music, wondering when their mysterious informer would show up. He expected the subject of the Malfoys and their secrets to be closed, so he was quite surprised when Evnissyen suddenly said:

"You know, you are right, there are things I am not permitted to tell you. You may serve the Dark Lord all you like, but you will always retain the status of a traitor among us."

Snape just nodded. It was to be expected.

"How can I know I can trust you?" Evnissyen asked, studying the bottom of the glass he had just emptied.

It was almost as if Evnissyen wanted to be persuaded, Snape thought. However, he wasn't truly buying this. Trust among the two of them was a fragile thing; Snape was never sure whether Evnissyen would not, one day, use Snape for his own ends. Come to think of it, Snape might one day use Evnissyen for the same purpose. On such a basis, it did not seem suitable to plead for the other's trust – it seemed a matter of bad taste, in fact.

"It depends what trust is all about," he finally replied. "You know what my aims are, and you know how much I'm willing to sacrifice for them. I've been a traitor a couple of times in my life, and I wouldn't swear an oath that I will never be one again. However, if you look at the facts, you see that I have very little to gain by betraying you or the Dark Lord ever again, that it would most likely be my death if I did. Now, judge for yourself whether you want to disclose some information you were told to keep from me."

Evnissyen's ice-blue eyes narrowed at Snape. "Your utter lack of loyalty towards anyone and anything sometimes awes me," he said.

Snape emptied his glass. He felt that there was something that should rather scare him, but he wasn't sure what it was. So he just said: "I sometimes wonder why you should bother with me."

Grinning boyishly, Evnissyen replied: "Treachery fascinates me, that's all. I always thought I was the world's biggest traitor, but you, with going back and forth, and then back and forth again, easily surpass me."

"Why did you do it?" There, he had done it at last, Snape realised. He had asked the question he had never wanted to ask, but had always craved the answer – a potentially fatal question, he realised as he held Evnissyen's eyes. Why, why had Evnissyen Dumbledore joined the Death Eaters? Why had he tried to capture his own father for the Dark Lord, and why had he, when failing his task, participated in the brutal slaying and abuse of his own mother, his sisters, his brothers-in-law and his little nieces and nephews? It wasn't the kind of question Snape ever wanted to ask anyone, and now he had simply asked it over a drink. Any moment now, the Death Eater might raise his wand and kill Snape, right here, in front of a club of dancing and drinking Muggles. Then the moment passed. Snape realised he was not going to be cursed to death; when Evnissyen spoke, Snape was surprised to actually get some kind of answer.

"Have you ever heard the story of my name?" Evnissyen asked.

Snape shook his head, strangely eager to hear it.

"My parents had longed for a son a long, long time," Evnissyen started his narration, which sounded like a legend and an autobiography at the same time. "Of course, they loved my elder sisters, and they were not sexist or anything, either, but I think especially my father had always wanted a son. When my mother found out she was pregnant with me, she wasn't exactly young any more, so she saw my birth as a bit of a miracle. This must have impaired her common sense, because I suppose she tempted fate by calling me _Nissyen_. You know who Nissyen was?"

Of course, Snape knew the famous Welsh legends. "Nissyen is the good son from one of the branches of the _Mabinogion_. He is inherently good, selfless and flawless, a bringer of healing and love."

"He's also an illegitimate son, by modern standards, and he's got an evil twin," Evnissyen reminded Snape, "two features which didn't apply to me, I am afraid. Maybe that's why the name backfired. You do not give someone a legendary name unless you are sure it fits, I suppose."

Snape nodded, although he was not exactly sure at what Evnissyen was aiming.

"My father was extremely proud that I was born, and just after I was named, he was tempted to look into Hogwarts' Book of Students, where all children born magical are recorded to be accepted at the school eleven years later. Maybe he wanted to make really sure that I wasn't a squib, that my name really was in there. He found me, too, but not under the name _Nissyen_."

Snape understood. "The book listed you as _Evnissyen_," he said.

"In the _Mabinogion_, the bringer of destruction, the bearer of pointless hatred, the traitor to his people and to his family," Evnissyen added with a pleasant smile.

"So they re-named you," Snape suggested.

"Did they have another choice?" Evnissyen asked. "Don't get me wrong, they loved me and cared for me, but they knew I would bring my family death as my name foretold. I always knew I would betray them one day, as I was marked a traitor from the moment I was born. Now tell me, where do you see cause, and where do you see effect? Did the Hogwarts Book of Students sense that I was a traitor by nature, marking my evilness by giving me that name, or did the name make me evil?"

Snape found no reply for that. The whole idea made him dizzy. Suddenly, he fiercely wished the awaited informer would show up, so they could end this conversation, finish their business here and go home to the peaceful world of cauldrons and potions. However, whatever strange, destructive force was at work in his partner, they would take it back to the Slytherin Mansion with them. Therefore, he just stared into the crowd of drinking and dancing Muggles for a while, trying to forget who he was, and why he had come to the club.

"That chick, the one you risked it all for – is she worth it?" Evnissyen asked quite suddenly.

Snape was at a loss for a moment: "That _chick_?"

"The Dark Lord's daughter," Evnissyen half-sang, his eyes widening with curiosity.

Snape did not know what to reply. Was she worth it? Finally he said: "I suppose I never questioned my actions in such terms."

Evnissyen laughed, though his eyes remained serious. "It seems you've got it bad, partner, if you never even ask yourself such questions. Tell me, what has she done to you that you both desire and hate her so much?"

Done to him? Snape wasn't sure. "She's chosen someone else for her lover, someone I detest," he answered after giving the question some thought.

"Vicious, indeed," Evnissyen commented with a slight, ironic smile. "So for that hideous crime, you will let the Dark Lord's hordes enjoy themselves at her expense, to use a _slight_ euphemism?"

Suddenly, Snape saw Valerie's face in front of him like a vision, distorted in pain and fear, the light in her eyes destroyed. "We'll see about that when the time comes," he said in a choked voice.

"You know what's wrong with Draco Malfoy's son?" Evnissyen said without any transition. "They are going to use him and a few other students from Durmstrang for a certain curse – the _Eliminatus_ curse. The Dark Lord's got a big project planned, and the students will be asked to channel quite a lot of energy for us. As you know, the _Eliminatus_ curse involves flooding something with anti-matter, and in this case, many minds are required to control such a large amount of it."

Evnissyen's explanation made Snape deeply uneasy. "If you say it's a _big_ project, you probably mean 'bigger than eliminating a single human being,' right?"

Evnissyen nodded. "Considerably bigger."

"Then such a plan is pure madness!" Snape broke out. "Nobody can channel such an amount of energy and retain his sanity or even his life. If you ask children to deal with such an amount of anti-matter–" he stopped short and then asked abruptly: "What does the Dark Lord want Eliminated anyway?"

"Oh, just your old school," Evnissyen replied, his face completely good-natured.

"Hogwarts?" Snape could not believe his ears. "A plan of this magnitude would certainly –" Realising what had made Lucius Malfoy snap when at the mentioning of his son this morning, Snape finished his sentence, somewhat deflated: "It would certainly result in the death of the children used to channel that kind of energy – although, if they are very lucky, they might get away with just going mad."

Evnissyen nodded. "That's what most people think. Of course, the Dark Lord told his followers that he had an expert at hand, one Petrodent, formerly know as Peter Pettigrew, who had everything under control and would make sure none of the Durmstrang students would be harmed in any way. The trouble is, I haven't seen Petrodent in a while, and I've heard some nasty rumours that he's disappeared. As a matter of fact, Petrodent is the wizard of whose whereabouts we are hoping to learn from our informer tonight."__

Snape shook his head in disbelief. "I knew Pettigrew in school, and he was about as talented as a block of wood. I can't see him organising a curse of that magnitude, let alone organise it in a way which will not harm his channellers."

"Well, that's what the Dark Lord told us, though," Evnissyen said, raising his eyebrows in challenge. "Hogwarts is supposed to be eliminated, and a whole bunch of Death Eaters' children will help to carry out the plan. I wasn't supposed to tell you that, of course."

"Why did you, then?" Snape asked without thinking.

"I told you, I have a thing with treachery," Evnissyen replied, amusement in his eyes. "I suppose I just don't like things to run too smoothly, to become too stable. Maybe I was just curious about your reaction."

"Well, first of all, I am amazed that Lucius Malfoy is willing to sacrifice his own son for this," Snape said, a bit evasively. "However, I suppose if Peter Pettigrew oversees the whole thing, nothing much will come of it anyway."

"Petrodent wasn't the only one working on the curse," Evnissyen told him. "I heard that the Dark Lord had quite a few people working on the Eliminatus. Presently, the whole thing is said to be supervised by Ludmila Davies, who teaches at Durmstrang and knows a lot about such curses. If you ask me, I'd say the students will most likely be gravely harmed, but that does not mean the plan cannot be carried out. I suppose that by the end of the summer, Hogwarts with all its teachers and students will be no more."

"Hogwarts…" For some reason, Snape suddenly felt nauseous. Something inside of him was urging him to some kind of action, but he could not figure out what kind of action that might be.

"Do you mind?" Evnissyen said, idly pulling at the leather cord that hung from his neck. Snape looked down at his partner's fingers and felt a sudden jolt in his stomach. He _knew_ Evnissyen's pendant, he had seen it before somewhere, and he also knew that it was important somehow. It was a bulging small clay amulet which had a few holes in it; obviously it was hollow.

"What's that thing around your neck?" he asked.

"So you know it?" Evnissyen's eyes were full of mischief. "I thought you might, because I found it in your cell down in the dungeon, hidden beneath a broken tile. Maybe you can tell _me_ what it is."

Snape felt a strange fear, and a strange desire, both connected to the clay item dangling from Evnissyen's fingers. He did not know what to answer, but he knew that refusing to answer would look suspicious. When Evnissyen suddenly half-turned towards somebody else, Snape felt as if he had been snatched from the frying pan just before starting to burn to charcoal: He saw Gavain Lothing, Hogsmeade's omnipresent greengrocer, whose presence in the Muggle club could only mean that the tradesman was the informer they had been waiting for.

"Lothing," Evnissyen greeted the wizard. With a sidelong glance at his wristwatch, he added: "I'm glad you could make it."

Lothing made a face at him. He was dressed in blue denims and a t-shirt; although the clothes were sufficiently Muggle-like, they looked out of place in the club, or at least decidedly underdressed. "I came as quickly as I could – I had a meeting with the head of the Hogwarts house-elves about vegetable supplies during the next month, and it would have looked suspicious if I had hurried away before we could have reached an agreement."

Looking over at Snape, he added: "Oh, so you _did_ go over to You-Know-Who, Professor." The last word was slick with irony, showing Snape that the days where he had been a teacher at Lothing's biggest customer, namely Hogwarts, were over for good. "I've heard the rumours, but it's something else altogether to see it with my own eyes."

Inwardly, Snape cursed Evnissyen, who was bound to have known that Lothing would recognise Snape. Their informer's loyalties seemed a bit dubious. Of course, if Lothing told everybody he had seen Snape among the Death Eaters, he would incriminate himself. However, Snape was uncomfortable with someone so close to home witnessing his renewed Death Eater status; it made everything just a little more final. Close to home.… What was home, anyway? His imagination conjured up a black hole of anti-matter.

Evnissyen bought Lothing a drink at the bar and exchanged a few meaningless phrases about the weather and the Quidditch League with him. After the second drink (Snape's third, he was going to have to watch it just a _little_ bit), they finally got down to business, when Evnissyen asked pleasantly:

"So, have you seen Petrodent around at all?"

"Oh, you mean Peter Pettigrew, the Dark Lord's spy number one?" Without waiting for confirmation, Lothing went on: "It was brought to my ears that two spies have been caught at Hogwarts – one of them assumingly the brother of Remus Lupin, one of them the long-mourned Peter Pettigrew."

Evnissyen made a face. "Are you sure of this?"

"Talking to house-elves, you can never be too sure of anything," Lothing replied evasively. "However, several of my sources report the same thing."

So Lothing was using the house-elves as sources of information; that was smart of him, Snape mused. Dealing with them in matters of fruits and vegetables, he came into regular contract with them, and they probably trusted him. Of course, the little creatures were too loyal to their master to willingly act against Dumbledore's interests; however, they could be easily deceived and coaxed if they did not know they were doing any harm. The greengrocer had probably made a habit of chattering with them about everything and anything, and he was probably sly enough not to arouse their suspicion with his occasional questions about life in the castle.

"When and how did this happen?" Evnissyen asked.

"About the 'how' I can't tell you much, as my sources didn't know themselves," Lothing replied. "As for when, I suppose it was something like a week ago."

"Do you know what they are going to do with the spies they caught?" Evnissyen wanted to know.

"No, I don't," Lothing replied.

"Where are they kept? At least _that_ should be known to the house-elves." There was a touch of impatience in Evnissyen's voice.

"It seems they are kept in something like prison cells in the dungeons of the castle, but I could not very well ask my sources to draw me a map or something, as that certainly would have aroused suspicion," Lothing answered.

Evnissyen sighed. "Anything else you can tell me – maybe something _useful_?" he asked.

"Don't get too rude," Lothing answered, making a show of being offended. "I have given you information no one else could have supplied."

"You could simply have sent us an owl to spare us the trouble of coming down here," Evnissyen complained while a bag of gold changed hands.

"Too lazy to Apparate, _Smith_?" There was a challenge in Lothing's voice; Snape realised that Evnissyen must have kept his real name from the informer. Then again, maybe Lothing had long ago recognised Dumbledore's son; he was almost bound to know him from Hogsmeade, where Dumbledore's family had resided up to that horrible night when most of it had been eradicated. There was a bond of mutual distrust between the three of them, Snape mused; none could trust the other, but each was bound to silence by his own crimes.

Lothing pocketed his gold, drained his lager, curtly bid them goodbye and left. Evnissyen waited until he was out of earshot. "Now, where were we?" he asked as if the whole conversation hadn't really happened, as if they hadn't just been informed of Petrodent's capture. "Oh yes, you were going to tell me where you got that clay amulet."

"Oh, it's just something I found in the cell," Snape replied, knowing that as he had been searched upon his imprisonment, it was the only reasonable explanation he could give. "I have no idea how it got there, but I don't think it's anything magical."

Evnissyen nodded. "Neither do I. It's not exactly fancy, so I might as well crush it, don't you think?" He bent down and laid the clay pendant on the floor. Then he raised his booted heel as if to step on it with full force.

"Hey, wait," Snape said. "If you don't like your pendant, why don't you give it to me and take mine instead?" He took off the leather cord hanging from his neck and held the oval piece of silver in his outstretched palm.

"You want it, then?" Evnissyen asked. He bent down to pick up the ocarina from the floor and let it dangle in front of Snape's face, his eyes alight with knowledge.


	29. Sirius

29 –Sirius 

The hours turned into days and the days turned into weeks until it seemed pointless to check off the days on his list anymore: They had been caged there for months. Sirius knew imprisonment, knew it better than he knew life itself, it seemed, but it still weighed heavily on him. Always the same room, confined by the same walls, containing the same bed, dresser, table, bookshelf, television, outdated computer and chessboard; always the same shower and toilet cubicle, the same window, showing them grey buildings and a grey sky. There was nothing beyond this, no world outside, just like in that poem about the panther Sirius had found in a tattered volume of poetry on the bookshelf.

Of course, this time he wasn't alone in his imprisonment; this time he had Remus with him. It was good to be close to his friend. Yet Remus was passive and depressed; killing the Minister of Magic had taken its toll on him. Sirius tried his best to cheer him up; he read to him, challenged him to chess matches, and played through the first two parts of a computer game called Monkey Island with him. Sometimes, he could make his friend laugh a little, but he could not deny that Remus was not quite himself any more. Most of his time he spent staring into nothingness. Sirius himself did not feel much better; he found their imprisonment depressing, and on top of that, his nightmares of Azkaban had returned with full force, turning their imprisonment of the present into his imprisonment of the past. He tried to keep all this to himself, smothering his own outcries with his pillow if he could: Remus was lying right beside him at night, and Sirius did not want to disturb his friend's few hours of sleep.

Oddly enough, the only time when Remus still seemed to be the friend Sirius had cherished all his life, the time when Sirius himself felt best, was during the time of the full moon. Deprived of Wolfsbane Potion, Remus turned into a ferocious, blood-thirsty werewolf for about three nights and two days each month. There was no choice for Sirius but to transform into a dog for these days and to keep his friend company in his animal shape. Laying side by side, their sharp-teethed snouts almost touching, they seemed to share an understanding that went beyond words. Padfoot knew the slightest of his wolf companion's movements by heart; every flicking of Moony's large, attentive ears, each swish of his tail, each low growl in his throat brought him close to happier times of his life. Together, the dog and the wolf sat in front of the barred window, looking out at drab, grey tenant houses and office buildings, wishing to be outside, to run as fast as their strong limbs permitted them, to chase, to hunt, to kill their prey. True, Sirius had never killed anything bigger than a rabbit, but now more than ever he felt he hated enough to kill. He wanted _out_. He wanted to be free. Knowing that running headfast into the confining door wouldn't help, he wished for a chance to take revenge on his prison guards with a ferocity that almost rivalled his hatred for Peter Pettigrew. On top of that, he was angry at himself.

How could they have been so stupid? They had run into Romulus Lupin at the airport, probably by chance, right after they had transformed back into themselves in an airport toilet. While they had been discussing where to go next, a stranger had knocked on Remus' shoulder. Recognizing him as the spitting image of Remus immediately, they had been eager to talk to the unknown American wizard. Romulus had invited them to his small apartment somewhere in the less fancy areas of huge, unknown New York; he had promised them a place to sleep and had offered them food and drink. Both Remus and Sirius had been glad to accept the offer, only to fall into a deep sleep at Romulus' apartment, a sleep from which they had not awakened until they had been brought into the very room of their imprisonment. Of the great, famous city they had seen virtually nothing; they could not really say where they had been imprisoned all this time, only that the doors were locked with magic and guarded by unknown people. While unconscious, they had been de-wanded, which put them even more at disadvantage. Their guards did not usually communicate with them, but provided the barest necessities to a cat flap so small that even Padfoot could not escape through it. Daily, Remus and Sirius were brought food and drink, sometimes a Muggle newspaper or a few changes of freshly washed clothes. As long as they cooperated, they were not harmed, but there seemed no chance for them to escape their prison, either.

Worst of all, they knew that with their cooperation, they were harming Hogwarts and Dumbledore, and most likely, helping the Death Eaters' side. However, there seemed little they could do. When they had been questioned about the present situation at Hogwarts by Romulus and three hooded figures, they had refused to talk. Then one of the hooded figures had magically caused Sirius pain – not with a _Cruciatus_ curse, just a couple of painful blasts. Sirius had even managed not to scream out, but the pain must have showed, because Remus had cracked at once. Sirius wished his friend had been less sensitive; from that point on, their prison guards had known where their weak spot lay: If they wanted one of them to cooperate, all they had to do was threaten the other one. Sirius knew it was wrong to give these people information, because they were probably Death Eaters. Most of all, he knew it was wrong to tell Varlerta and Harry over the phone that everything was alright, that he was looking for Wormtail in New York, and that Remus had returned to Hogwarts. He felt very guilty about complying with his prison guards' demands. If they had tortured him, he prided himself in thinking he would have remained steadfast. However, one look at Remus, weakened in body and spirit by the consequences of the Ice Missile curse, told him he could not bear it to see him tortured. He wished he could escape and take revenge on Romulus Lupin, could tell the world he was a spy, could undo the wrongs the two of them were supporting with their compliance. However, here in this prison, there was nothing he could do. They were wandless and outnumbered, imprisoned and weakened by the fact that they cared for each other. They were, he thought bitterly, tools in their enemies' hands.

Huddling on the bed, staring into the nothingness beyond the running television, Sirius and Remus were spending the morning of yet another endless day in their prison. Remus was apathetic, his head resting limply on Sirius shoulder. Sirius put an arm around his shoulders.

"I wish it was full moon," he murmured, knowing that in spite of its glorious tradition, the sentence was so washed-out that it hardly meant anything anymore. Remus didn't reply. His head seemed to grow heavier on Sirius' shoulder.

"I wish we could go for a run in the moonlight – on paws," Sirius continued, inwardly cringing at being so predictable. Remus didn't comment. He didn't look up to a run.

They sat in silence for another while, unwatching shows about Muggle schools and about zoo animals unwilling to breed in captivity, unwatching the Muggle morning news. There was no news of the wizard world. The weather forecast for March 29th, 1997, bore no special relevance to them; they would get no chance to go out and feel sunshine or taste rain, anyway.

Suddenly, something like a shockwave ran through Remus' body. He sat up straight and turned his head as if looking for something. His nostrils flared slightly; for a moment, Sirius was reminded of a wolf sniffing the wind. Slightly afraid that this strange alertness of his sick friend might mean a new outbreak of the curse, Sirius followed him to the window.

"There is something going on at Hogwarts," Remus whispered. Despite his apprehensions, Sirius felt a strange happiness at seeing the energy in his eyes, an energy he had missed for a long, long time.

"They have brewed a panacea," Remus continued softly, "a panacea for me. It is calling me." With intense longing, he stared out of the window. "I only need to receive it to be cured."

Sirius had barely heard of panaceas and did not know exactly how they worked, but he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that Remus' condition had improved already. Turning to him, Remus' smile mirrored his own. Sirius laid his palm on his friend's arm, a meaningless gesture he had repeated many times in the last months. Somehow, Remus' skin seemed warmer than before; through the cloth of his sleeve, Sirius could feel that his friend was alive, and very much so.

"It is strange," Remus said, holding Sirius' gaze. "I have no idea why I should know such a thing, but I am absolutely sure that there is a panacea waiting for me at Hogwarts, and that it will cure me of my curse. I've never been much of a seer, as you well remember, so I don't know how I've come to know this."

Remembering how all four of them, even James the Head Boy, had performed remarkably moderately in Divination class because of an utter lack of the Second Sight, Sirius grinned. "Do you mean you had your first vision?" he asked.

Remus shook his head. "It wasn't something I saw, rather something I felt – or did I maybe hear it?" He frowned in concentration; then he shook his head. "I'm not sure – but I'm positive that I didn't just imagine it."

Strange as it sounded, Sirius was completely convinced. He put both arms around his friend and pulled him close. "I know, Moony, I know," he replied. "And do you know why I know this? It shows."

As far as outside circumstances were concerned, their imprisonment had not changed. They were still locked in, still confined to the same narrow space of books, television and computer games, to the food wordlessly offered to them through the cat-flap, to their isolation from the world outside. Still, with Remus feeling better, everything was easier to bear. Now Sirius' attempts to make his friend laugh were no longer in vain. Now both of them were sharing stories, making up plans for a glorious escape (useless as these plans were), even keeping up a daily routine of exercises to make up for their lack of physical mobility. Remus had regained his ability to beat Sirius in chess, so both made good use of the only magical item which they had been granted in their cell.

When Sirius had another nightmare about Azkaban a couple of days later, he let Remus comfort him in his arms. It felt good to be held, to be soothed by kind words. For the first time in his life, Sirius told Remus what it had really been like in Azkaban, told him more than the few sentences he usually used to pack his personal terror into a few neat, syntactical boxes. Maybe he had talked to nobody that way before; maybe nobody had listened to him that way before. Somehow, in spite of his own sufferings, or maybe because of them, it seemed that Remus could take whatever horror spilled out of Sirius. Perhaps for the first time, Sirius felt he didn't have to hold back the worst of his experience, because it would hurt the listener too much to see his pain so clearly: He didn't have to protect Remus from the truth, because lying to his friend would have been worse than telling the truth. They talked through the night; when Sirius finally fell asleep, he felt calm, as if his soul had been cleansed.

The next day, over a game of chess they had up to that point played in almost complete silence, Remus asked about Varlerta. Did Sirius think of her a lot? Did he miss her? Did he long for her?

Sure, Sirius missed her and longed for her, and so he told Remus. It was true; from time to time he thought of Varlerta, feeling an emotional and also a physical need for her nearness. In these cases, he usually got himself a bit of privacy in the shower cubicle, a privacy Remus had always respected without a comment. As the months had passed, these incidents had occurred less and less frequently. He did not tell Remus this, however; he only said that sure, he missed his lover, and left it at that, nudging his knight forwards to do battle with Remus' queen.

In the afternoon, there was a phone-call from Varlerta, a rare occurrence as it was. Sirius knew that no phone could work from Hogwarts, that she had to drive to a nearby Muggle village to use a phone booth. Still, while talking to her, he suddenly wondered why she didn't call more often. So far, her phone calls had been a threat to him; he had always longed to tell her the truth, and had found keeping up Romulus Lupin's construction of lies difficult. The thought of not being able to give her the very necessary warning about the spy at Hogwarts had always quite spoilt the pleasure of talking to her; all he really needed to tell her, he had to keep quiet. That day, he found lying to her much easier. Although he had not forgotten that it was his duty to warn her and everybody else of Romulus Lupin, he knew now that there was no way he could. She was in one world, and he was in another. There was no way he could risk Remus' new-found well-being by telling her the truth while the prison guards were listening in.

That evening, both sat up long, letting the room fall into darkness as a red and lilac sunset faded into a grey dust. Neither turned on the light to get himself a book; neither suggested any kind of activity. In silence, they watched the sky change colour, watched it turn into an inky blackness. When it was pitch-dark, Remus rose and undressed for bed, turning his back to Sirius in an uncharacteristic prudishness. Sirius heard rather than saw him slip under his cover.

There was no point in staying up any longer, Sirius told himself, although he felt a certain, inexplicable apprehension. He took off his jeans and sweatshirt and stripped off the rest of his clothes like he had done every night; then he slipped under his own cover. Suddenly it seemed strange to him that Remus and he should sleep in the same bed. Their closeness, the very normality of it, suddenly turned into an oddity. His back to his friend, Sirius listened to Remus' even breathing, counting the seconds between inhaling and exhaling, and adjusted his own breathing to it. He knew Remus wasn't sleeping. For a long, long while he listened to Remus pretending to sleep, sharing his wakefulness.

"You are not sleeping," he said at last.

"Neither are you," Remus retorted, his voice soft and low in the darkness.

Sirius turned around. It was too dark to see more than a crude outline of Remus' head and shoulders, but he could feel a slight hint of his breath on his face. Neither of them spoke or moved. The time seemed to stand still. Unease grew in Sirius. For some absurd reason, he felt an acute, physical need to spend some time alone in the shower, but at the same time, he could not bring himself to move a single limb.

The moon rose. In a few nights it would be full. A shimmer of it caught the tips of Remus' hair and the outline of his biceps. Sirius knew his own face was visible now, while Remus' face lay in the shadow. He closed his eyes.

The touch was so slight he might have imagined it, lighter than a feather, but not half as tickling. He smiled in the darkness, hearing his breath quicken in synchrony with another. Gently and slowly, very, very slowly, Remus ran a finger along the length of Sirius' arm. For a moment, the finger lingered on the back of Sirius' hand, a spot of warmth in the darkness. When it was taken away, Sirius strangely longed for it to return, but he did not dare to open his eyes, to talk or to move. The blood was throbbing in his ears, mirroring a quickened heartbeat or maybe the blood rush of desire.

Something was tugging ever so slightly at his scalp; Remus must be playing with strands of his hair, Sirius realised, more precisely, with strands of hair resting on the pillow. Knowing that he was being touched, but in a place where he could not feel it, was way too strange for Sirius. He opened his eyes. As if burnt or scalded, Remus' fingers withdrew from his pillow like flashes of lightning. Sirius stared at the dark outline of his face.

"I'm sorry," Remus whispered. There was desperation in his voice. Abruptly, he got up, pushing the covers aside, heading for the door. Although Remus was obviously trying to keep his backside to the bed, Sirius could clearly see that he was suffering from the same physical condition as Sirius, something he obviously meant to conceal.

"Moony!" His own outcry almost scared Sirius.

Slowly, Remus turned. His body, the outline of his desire, shone in the moonlight.

"Come here," Sirius said hoarsely.

Remus walked back to the bed and sat down next to Sirius. He was trembling.

"You are cold," Sirius whispered. Then, with quivering, clumsy fingers he lifted his cover so Remus could slip under it.

The next morning, Sirius woke to find himself alone in the bed. He buried his head in his pillow, replaying scenes from the night in his head, disturbing scenes, scenes burning like fire in his body. "I've always wanted you – always," that's what Moony had whispered to him, his face buried in Sirius' collarbone, their bodies an entanglement of heat. Remembering the feeling of skin on skin, Sirius felt elated and terrified at the same time. How could it have come to that? How could these things have happened between him and Moony? Was he gay now?

Suddenly he wished he did not have to face Remus now. He wished he could have some time alone to sort things out. However, in the narrow confinement of their cage, there was no hiding place.

Sirius raised his head and looked around. Remus was huddling on the sofa, hugging his legs, not looking at him. Never, not even after killing Fudge under the influence of the curse, had Moony looked so forlorn. Did he feel as confused as Sirius?

He rose, showered and dressed, avoiding the sight of Remus, afraid of what he would see. "I've always wanted you – always." Years, decades of friendship had changed their meaning with that sentence. Sirius felt as if a part of his life had been stolen from him, maybe the best part of it.

There was no way he could avoid him any longer, no way he could sit down with a book, let alone eat the breakfast that had been provided for them through the cat flap. Awkwardly, Sirius collapsed on the sofa, at last looking at the bloodless face of his friend, his overshadowed eyes and raw-looking cheeks.

"Sirius, my friend, I will never forgive myself," Remus whispered, staring at his long, finely chiselled fingers. Memories clouded Sirius' vision – the hand of an eleven-year old Remus, holding a wand with slight apprehension, the fingers of a sixteen-year old Remus, buried in the fur of a large, shaggy dog. He had always harboured a secret, strange fascination with Moony's beautiful hands.

"There's nothing to forgive," Sirius replied quietly, fighting to keep his voice even. "It's not like you did something to me without my –" his voice almost faltered, "consent."

"Do you hate me now?" Remus asked, for the first time meeting Sirius' gaze. For all his fear, his was a gaze with spine; a gaze that told of the grief had born, and would bear, without much complaint.

Mutely, Sirius shook his head. For a long time, none of them spoke.

"So – do you want me to sleep on the sofa from now on?" Remus inquired. Was there a trace of mischief in his eyes? Sirius wasn't quite sure.

"No," he replied.

"In the shower cubicle, then?" Remus asked. There was definitely laughter in his eyes now.

Sirius couldn't quite grasp what was so funny about all of this, except for that it was. He had to fight to keep his face straight.

"No, I don't want you to sleep in the shower cubicle, Moony," he replied.

Now positively grinning, Remus threw a cushion at Sirius. "Poor Padfoot. How could this happen to the world's greatest homophobe?"

**Author's comment**: I apologise for the long delay. My betas couldn't beta because life wouldn't let them, and won't be able to for some time to come, through no fault of their own. This chapter was betaed by Hibiscus again – extra special thanks, not the least for spotting the spello of the month – 'Padfood.' :o

By the way, I'm looking for an intermediate beta, for example for the next two chapters who have been finished for almost two months. Is there anyone willing to stand in?


	30. Aisha

**30 – Aisha**

There was no way she was going to see Romulus. No way whatsoever, she had told Varlerta.

"C'mon, the guy's miserable, and he says all he wants to do is apologise to you," Varlerta had tried to persuade her.

Stubbornly, Aisha stuck to her refusal. Romulus had lied to her. He had slept with her pretending to be someone he wasn't. He had used her to get his own ends, had gullied her with sweet lies. On top of all that, he was a spy for the other side, for Varlerta's and Roary's biggest enemy. How could her band mate even suggest she should go and see him?

Varlerta brought her Romulus' greetings every now and then. Aisha tried to ignore them. The man had deceived her, like so many men had before him. She wasn't going to take it any longer. If a guy had lied to her once, he would lie to her again. She never wanted to hear of him again.

Of course Varlerta and Roary, tactless as they were, liked to discuss matters related to Romulus over a beer or during band practise.

"To get Sirius and Remus free, we need to get in touch with the people who are holding them captive," Roary reminded Varlerta while she was tuning her guitar. "Romulus has promised he'll ask his friends to let them go in exchange for his own freedom. However, we can't just let him go like that."

"I disagree," Varlerta replied, playing a few flageolet notes to check the tuning of her guitar. "We know he can't go back to Voldemort anyway, because Voldemort would skin him alive for getting caught, and for setting Sirius and Remus free. We could promise him that we'll let him go only when the two have made it safely back to the castle."

"I'm not sure how far we can trust him," Roary said, fiddling with his microphone stand. "He seems rather like someone who is working for his own profit than like a fanatic follower of Voldemort, but we already know that he is a good actor. He might even be accepted back into the Death Eaters' ranks if he offered them sufficiently good information. Goodness knows what he might tell them."

"Like what?" Varlerta asked, taking off her guitar and placing it on its stand. She seemed eager to discuss rather than to play. Behind her drum set, Aisha sighed, because she would have preferred playing a few songs to hearing more about Romulus.

Ignoring the sigh, Varlerta went on: "What could he tell them? That we're against Voldemort? Big deal – big shnirking surprise, if you ask me. Tell him about the strength of our armed forces, or the outlay of the castle? I'm positive Voldemort already knows all of this, because Romulus says he's been sending him information a few times via Pettigrew."

"Sounds like you are bent on setting the guy free," Roary said, frowning.

"Sounds like I shnirking well want Sirius and Remus safely back here in the castle," Varlerta retorted. "What would you say if it was Pat who was held captive?"

"That's not the same thing," Roary said with a glance towards his lover of many years. Pat smiled in response, but his body language suggested unease.

"Why not?" Varlerta hissed, turning white with anger. "Do you think I love Sirius any less?"

Roary merely raised an eyebrow. Aisha wished to be far away. She'd seen Varlerta blow up at people, and she didn't like it.

"Cut it out, everybody," Pat said. Everybody looked his way. Pat wasn't one to say a lot in the company of a larger group, but if he spoke up, people usually listened to him.

"We're here to make music, not to discuss your war strategies, let alone anybody's love life," Pat said. "Now, are you going to play or not?"

Both looking a bit sheepish, Roary and Varlerta returned to microphone and guitar and got ready to play. Aisha cast Pat a grateful glance, and then broke into the snare roll which announced the intro of Pat's latest song. There was no need to talk or discuss any more; the band members knew what to play, and how to blend their instruments into one unifying sound. Aisha felt the tension ease. In their music, the four of them could resolve all the conflicts that sometimes smouldered between them. Suddenly she intensely longed for the good old times, for the time they had spent together in New York before Varlerta and Roary had decided that they were needed in this strange, slightly eerie magical castle.

For a while, they just let the music flow. During their fourth song, however, the door of Varlerta's building opened, and in came Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick and Professor Vector. The band members stopped playing immediately and put their instruments away. Aisha knew that something important had happened. She had seen the Headmaster of Hogwarts only a few times, but never had she seen him enter Varlerta's building. If she wasn't mistaken, the teachers in his company were some of those he trusted most. If they all entered unbidden, it had to mean that they wanted to talk to Roary and Varlerta on some extremely urgent matter.

Dumbledore, who looked as ancient and fragile as ever, sat down on the sofa; the teachers, including Varlerta and Roary, placed themselves around him, patiently waiting for him to speak.

"We have received an owl," Dumbledore said at last. "See for yourselves." And with these words, he handed a dog-eared, fray-edged piece of parchment to Varlerta and Roary. Aisha, who had remained seated behind the drum set, was curious, but could not read the two or three words scribbled on it from the distance.

"Verus," Varlerta said quietly. "It's from V – from Professor Snape. I recognise the handwriting."

"'_Eliminatus_, this summer, Malfoy's son,'" Roary read aloud. "You mean, the enemy means to attack us with the _Eliminatus_ curse?"

"It certainly seems like it," Dumbledore said gravely.

"You think they want to eliminate something?" Roary asked on. "Not – not _us_, I suppose, because a curse of that magnitude…." He stopped, frowning. "That's impossible."

"The note is not very precise, admittedly," Professor McGonagall replied, "but it must be important, because Professor Snape probably risked his life by sending it."

"But he was alive when he sent it," Varlerta murmured, touching the piece of parchment very lightly with her fingers.

"What do you make of that bit about Malfoy's son?" Roary asked.

"We believe it refers to Draco Malfoy, who attended Hogwarts until he was transferred to Durmstrang about two years ago," Professor McGonagall replied crisply. "We have no precise information about how he might be connected to the curse, but it certainly sounds credible that he is working for the enemy now, young though he is."

"You really think they're going to attack us with that curse?" Varlerta murmured, rubbing her chin with her index finger.

"It sounds unlikely, but it does seem to mean that the enemy has found a way to exercise an _Eliminatus_ curse to an extent that can become a threat to us," Roary commented. "The note must be intended as a warning for us, telling us to work up a defence against that curse. We must start looking for one immediately, and we certainly need the help of an expert."

"Bill Weasley, the curse breaker," Professor Flitwick suggested. Professor McGonagall nodded.

"What about Pettigrew and Romulus Lupin?" Varlerta asked. "They might know something about what the Death Eaters are planning. Is there a way we could get more information from them?"

"Pettigrew isn't saying a shnirking thing," Roary reminded her.

Cosinus Vector looked like he was about to say something, but Dumbledore raised his hand to stop him, obviously guessing what the teacher had on his mind.

"We won't resort to the methods of the enemy, Cosinus," the headmaster reminded him. "We will not harm our prisoners to press information from them."

"In theory, I agree with you, Albus," Roary said. "Torturing people is out of question, and no ends justify such means. However, if Voldemort has really found a way to cast an _Eliminatus_ curse of that magnitude, pressing information from our prisoners might be a way of pure self-defence."

Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall exchanged glances. The witch had paled visibly, but she shook her head. "It is true; this curse may be all of our deaths. However, if we torture people to elicit information, we are no better than the enemy. Cruelty and abuse of power irreversibly corrupt those that use it. We must find a way to defend our lives without such means."

"I respect your point of view – but what about the children?" Professor Flitwick asked. "What about the many students in this castle? If we are attacked and they die because we were too noble to resort to torture, we will be to blame. We do not know enough about the curse to defend ourselves against it."

"It may be time to evacuate the castle," Professor McGonagall said, paler than ever.

"We should at least try to question our prisoners again in the normal way, you know, just _ask_ them, maybe bribe them or something," Varlerta insisted. "Maybe at least Romulus Lupin will tell us something." Suddenly she turned to Aisha, on her face a slightly wicked grin. "We will send _you_ to him. If you ask him to help us, we might stand a chance."

When all heads turned towards her, Aisha felt herself blushing. She had assumed that the accomplished, powerful witches and wizards in the room had forgotten she and Pat were present at all.

"You overestimate my power over Mr. Lupin," she said, managing a slight sarcastic undertone.

"No, Varlerta may be right – he asked about you every time we questioned him," Professor Flitwick piped happily. "Miss Riq, you may indeed be helpful in this matter – if you are willing, that is."

Aisha hated to have everybody's eyes on her. What did they expect from her? She felt powerless and, let's face it, very ugly. All her life, she had been told that she was no great beauty. She just didn't have what it took to charm important information out of a professional wizard spy.

"Give it a try, Aisha," Varlerta pleaded, her face softer than before. Without a comment, and perhaps unnoticed by everyone but Aisha, she took Professor Snape's note from the table and sneaked it into her pocket. "You see we're in a kind of fix here, and you might really be the one person who can help us." Then her eyes grew mischievous. "See it as a way to get back at him. If you can make him tell us what we need to know, you're even after all the lies he's told you – or rather, you will be the winner in this match."

Aisha shrugged. She was not convinced. "I think you all will be very disappointed in me, but I wouldn't want you to think that I don't want to be helpful," she replied. "If you believe it may be of any use, I'll go and talk to him."

Descending the stairs to the dungeon with Roary, Aisha felt increasingly strange. She had been told that Romulus was not imprisoned in a wet, mouldy hole in the ground, but that they had locked him into a subterranean, moderately comfortable room down there. Still, walking down to a dungeon to see her imprisoned ex-lover gave her a strange feeling. She could not help imagining him half-starved and in rags, wearing a ball and chain, begging her for bread.

On the way down, the two of them met Argus Filch, the ill-favoured, sour-looking caretaker of Hogwarts. Aisha flinched when she noticed a thumbscrew and a vicious-looking saw in his hands. "Enemies of Hogwarts, I will teach you to fear us," Filch murmured. Roary grinned at Aisha, but shook his head in a reassuring way. Aisha hadn't thought so, no, but with these wizards you could never be too sure.

Deep down in the dungeon, along a chilly passage of roughly hewn stone, Aisha could see a number of doors. Roary halted in front of the fourth. Before he opened it, he took something from his pocket – a small, ordinary pebble as far as Aisha could see.

"This thing is enchanted to work even in the hand of a Muggle," he told her and pressed the object into her palm. "Keep it in your pocket – and if you feel threatened or anything, rub it. I'll be waiting right outside the door, and if my pebble grows hot –" he showed her another, identical-looking pebble, "I'll come to your help immediately. – Or do you want me to come with you?"

Was she afraid to be alone with Romulus? Aisha shook her head and put the pebble in her pocket. Somehow she couldn't imagine him trying to strangle her or attack her in any other way. On the other hand, if Varlerta was right at all, if she could elicit information from Romulus by using her questionable womanly wiles, Roary's presence might spoil the effect.

"I'll be okay," she said to Roary, nodding for him to unlock the door and let her in.

She found Romulus sitting on the cot in a small, white-washed cell lit by magical candles. He looked thinner and had grown a greying stubble, but otherwise he seemed okay. When he saw her, he stared at her with his bright green eyes for a moment. Then, just as the door closed behind her, he got up to greet her.

"So – you've decided to come and see me after all," he said in a light and even voice, or rather, a voice that might have been intended to sound light and even.

Aisha nodded. She didn't know what to say. He looked so unhappy. He deserved it, she reminded herself.

"Why are you here?" Romulus asked. "Have you decided not to hate me after all, or is there something else you want?"

Aisha wasn't good at this game. "We've been warned that we will be attacked by a certain curse this summer, by the son of the Minister of Magic, it appears. We've been wondering if you might be able and willing to help us."

"Which curse?" Romulus asked hoarsely, holding her eyes with his.

"It's called _Eliminatus_," Aisha replied.

Romulus broke eye contact and looked at the white wall opposite her. He probably would have stared out of the window, Aisha thought, if the room had had one.

For a while, nobody spoke or moved. Then Romulus got up and walked over to his small table, from which he took a piece of parchment and a quill. Frowning at the outdated method of writing, he jotted down an address in Boston and a line of figures before he handed the piece of parchment to Aisha.

"Do you have enough money for a plane ticket to Boston?" he asked.

Aisha shrugged. "I suppose I might, but what do you want from me?" she retorted.

Romulus held her gaze once more. "I want you to get out of this shnirking hell-hole of a castle before the trouble really starts here. You will find the key to my apartment hidden below the roots of the left yucca plant outside the door. It's buried deep down there, so don't be too shy to get your hands dirty. Behind the moving portrait in the dining room, you will find the safe. If the portrait guy gets upset, just ignore him. The combination to the safe is on the parchment here."

"You want me to get something for you?" Aisha asked, promising herself not to get entangled in his web of deception again. "What is it?"

"I said I want you to get _out_. You are a Muggle, and have nothing to do with our wars. The money in the safe will help you hide from this mess. Get a nice house somewhere in the country-side, maybe in the Midwest, where witches and wizards are scarce, to put it lightly. There's cash and plastic money, all valid, don't be afraid to use it."

"Are you saying I should hide because things are becoming dangerous here?" Aisha asked, beginning to comprehend.

"Aisha, what the shnirk do you think I'm talking about?" Romulus snapped impatiently. "We are talking about a shnirking war here, in which all the shnirking wizards of this country will blow each other's mentally substandard heads off. You are a Muggle, right? You are utterly defenceless and therefore, one could say, to a certain degree innocent. Get the shnirk out of here while you still can, or you will be killed alongside with everyone else."

"So what are you going to do?" she asked. She did not want to think about the impending danger for her, her friends and all the people in this castle; first of all, she wanted to understand what he was telling her.

He chuckled mirthlessly. Then, without looking at her, he said, "It seems that, like most people in this castle, I am doomed if I stay here and doomed if I manage to get away, because I suppose the Dark Lord's followers are already looking for me. Still, I might be able to buy my freedom in an exchange of prisoners. In that case, I'd try to go into hiding somewhere."

Suddenly there was a glimmer of light in his eyes. "Let's agree on a time and place to meet. If I make it, I'll come, and we can hide together if you want to. If I don't –" He shrugged. "If you decide you don't want to see me, just don't show up. So – let's agree one someplace obscure. Des Moines? Salt Lake City?"

Aisha raised her hand to stop him. "Wait a minute. The people in the castle here are my _friends_. I'm not going to run away and leave them in danger."

Romulus snorted. "Fine friends – they draw you into this mess and expect you to die at their side."

"I didn't want to stay behind in New York," Aisha retorted. "Plus, they were afraid I might become a hostage. They didn't _make_ me come here. I wanted to come along."

"But they didn't tell you of the danger," Romulus retorted.

The danger…. No, nobody had told her how dangerous this magical world could become for her. True, they had warned her of mischievous, trouble-making wizards, of the reckless crowd in the Basilisk Bar, but….

"That night in the Basilisk Bar," Aisha said on sudden impulse, "would you have watched me be taken or even be killed?"

A grim smile on his face, Romulus replied, "I didn't know you then, right? I was confused, because you knew my name, and I decided to just see what would happen. I have no idea how I would have acted if Lucullus hadn't eventually pulled her trick, if the wizards would really have had the chance to harm or take you. I wanted to figure out what was going on before I took sides, but I don't usually appreciate a battle of four against one. – By the way, it was you who gave me the idea that my twin brother might be alive. All my life, I had thought he had been killed by a werewolf, but the incident in the bar made me have second thoughts about it. When I met him at the airport by some freak chance, I knew at once that I should try to get him into my power – especially as you apparently knew him, and people told me you were associated with Lyons."

"Roary?" Just when she thought she might grasp the meaning of what he was telling her, he had confused her again. "What does Roary have to do with all of this?"

"Roary Lyons? Loads, actually." Romulus half-sat down on the table. "You know, before I met Pettigrew, I was never one of the Dark Lord's followers, but I belonged to a group of wizards called the _Magical Society_ – I suppose you could call them elitist and separatist. Unlike the British pureblood fanatics, they care less about birth and more about magical powers. They believe that it is the destiny of wizards to rule the world – to rule the Muggles, basically."

"So you think you should rule us, right? Well, screw you!" Suddenly, Aisha was very angry again.

A sheepish look on his face, Romulus replied: "See, I didn't know you then, and the Muggles I did know were – well, unmagical in all their doings. They were bureaucrats, company managers and mortgage payers; they lived for making money and spending it, for polluting nature and buying new cars and TV sets. They weren't able to see the beauty of the world, or to relate to anything beyond their narrow Muggle grasp, and if something happened that was beyond the power of their sciences, they pretended it didn't exist. I didn't want to leave the rule of this world to such people. Now I know you, and I know that you are different. You care for the people around you, you live for music, and you seem to have an eye for nature and everything surrounding you. You are brave and willing to take risks; you are resourceful and can relate to all sorts of creatures. I could still laugh my ass off about how you tricked these house-elves, if only everything hadn't turned out so badly. Now, I'm not sure whether you are the only Muggle in the world who's got a heart and a mind, but if I'm granted another chance to live, I'll be willing to find out."

While listening to him, Aisha felt showered with conflicting emotions: Anger at his arrogance, a certain understanding of his point of view and at the same time a kind of disgust with it, yet again excitement about his words of love – if they _were_ words of love – and an underlying wariness. Yes, she was still attracted to him, intrigued by getting to know this side of him, but she wasn't sure whether she could trust him. Ransacking her mind for a way to react to his speech, she actually found a path that seemed the right one to tread: Stick to her agenda and ask him about the _Eliminatus_ curse.

"You might have another go at living, and so might all of us, if you help us with that curse," she reminded him. "Is there no way we can fight against it – or _they_, rather?"

Romulus scratched the greyish stubble covering his cheeks and chin. "I'm not sure, because I haven't worked on this curse myself. However, I do know a thing or two about curses in general, because I've got a Masters in Dark Arts from Northern Magic University. The _Eliminatus_ curse is a tricky little thing that conjures up anti-matter, which works like a big, black hole that swallows up everything. Whatever the curse is directed at simply ceases to exist. Unfortunately, or should I say fortunately, the curse is quite difficult to administer for a normal human mind, even for one trained in large-scale curses. Therefore, you can't annihilate anything big – at University, they taught me that a rabbit was about largest thing you can make disappear with it. The Death Eaters have been said to be able to annihilate humans, but I used to think this was only a rumour. Now I heard that the Dark Lord's followers have found a way to use the curse on a grand scale which might enable them to eliminate a whole building, maybe even this castle. If this is true, they can just turn us into nothing."

All of a sudden, Aisha felt very cold. "What happens to people if they are turned into nothing?" she asked softly.

Very tentatively, Romulus laid a finger on Aisha's cheek, which had broken out into goose bumps. "I don't know," he replied quietly. "Nobody knows. Some say it's just like dying, some say it's worse than being dead, because you can't even die properly, so that means your body, or soul, or whatever you believe in, can't re-enter the cycle of life and death. See, that's why I want you to get out of here and to save your little ass."

Unsure whether she should be mollified or indignant at his macho condescendence, Aisha turned away from him. "There's _got_ to be a way to fight against this curse," she half-whispered.

"I don't know of any," Romulus replied. "Pettigrew may know more – the madwizard who was captured with me and who tried to hurt you, remember? I heard he was involved in the development of the curse. Unfortunately, I don't know whether we can make him talk – I heard that the Dark Lord has magical ways of preventing people from talking even in captivity."

"He didn't keep you from talking, did he?" Aisha asked. Suddenly she was afraid; was it possible that the Dark Lord, or Voldemort as Varlerta and Roary called him, was controlling Romulus even as he stood here talking to her?

"I've tried to keep my contact with him and his followers to a minimum," Romulus replied. "As a spy, I was too valuable for them not to comply with my eccentric wishes not to become a Death Eater and to have no mark or spell applied to me. Also, I suppose they thought I knew what I was doing, as I've done spy jobs before. I thought I'd do well, too, stupid oaf that I was." Once more, he laughed without amusement.

"Why did you do it, though, if you aren't a follower of Voldemort?" Aisha asked.

Romulus flinched at the mention of the name. "It was a spy job, and a demanding one, one only I could do, so I was intrigued. The money was good, too – more than good, I admit. The Death Eaters were seeking to integrate the _Magical Society_ into their ranks, and as I was a member, I was willing to check them out, see how they worked and what they could accomplish. When I told them about having captured my brother, they knew exactly who he was and wanted me to take his place at Hogwarts. I was one of the top spies of the _Magical Society_, so I wanted to show this British Death Eater group what I could do. It seemed to be a smart choice at the time," he added with a self-conscious smirk.

Right, he had been a spy for this society. Thinking about what Romulus had said earlier in the conversation, Aisha replied, "I still don't understand what Roary's got to do with all of this."

"Lyons? Well, he's the president of the _Magical Society_'s biggest opponents – of an internationally operating group of radicals, called the League," Romulus replied. "Of course, that's largely kept a secret – I did some spying on the League a while ago, in disguise, and was the one to find out that Lyons is their president," he added with a hint of pride.

Aisha shrugged. "I suppose it's kept a secret, even from me, because it's the first thing I've heard of it."

"And that's a good thing," Romulus replied. "They've drawn you into these matters far too much as it is."

"Stop treating me like a child, you condescending chauvinist," Aisha snapped back. "The fact that I don't have magical powers doesn't mean that I am stupid, or innocent, or in need of protection."

"I agree with you but for the last point," Romulus replied, his face serious. "I still advise you to get the shnirk out of here, because –"

"Forget it," Aisha cut him short. "If you want to protect me in any way, devise a way how my oh-so-powerful friends can defend the castle against that blasted curse. Is there any way you can get information out of that Pettigrew guy?"

Romulus shrugged. "I'd be willing to try," he replied. "As I said, I think he mentioned to me that he was protected by a spell to keep him from giving information to the enemy – to your side, that is – but maybe I could try to talk to him, because I'm not really one of your side. However, he's bound to suspect something if you finally permit the two of us to have contact."

"I'll suggest that to the powerful witches and wizards of this castle," Aisha said with a hint of irony. "But how can we know that we can trust you?"

Romulus smiled in his slightly sarcastic way. "If you approach trust from logic's point of view, you can argue that the Dark Lord will now believe me to be pretty worthless as it is, so I have little to lose by helping your side. On the other hand, I have everything to gain by helping you, considering I will die alongside everybody else here if we fail. Therefore, it should make sense to trust me." Then he took both of her hands in his. "But what about your heart, Aisha? Does your heart say you can trust me?"

"It used to say that, and it got disappointed pretty badly," Aisha replied, withdrawing her hands. "It's a pretty stupid heart, if you ask me. I'm never going to trust it again."

"So you did not forgive me?" he asked, his beautiful green eyes locking with hers.

"No," she replied stubbornly. _You did not even ask for my forgiveness_, she thought.

"I will try to get something out of Pettigrew," he said, "and I will do what I can to help you. Maybe I can contact a few people you could consider neutral in this fight – colleagues, scholars, people who know even more about curses than I do. However, you must promise me one thing. If I succeed in helping you all against the curse, you must forgive me. Promise?"

Aisha swallowed. Maybe this was his way of apologising. Men were complicated, she reminded herself, and hardly ever straightforward, especially if they were not lying.

"Promise," she replied.

**Author's note: **

Thanks to Thranx, Khaira Li Beren and Vanessa. I'm so lucky to have THREE new betas, yay! Now I can finally post again...


	31. Varlerta

31 – Varlerta 

These days, we are meeting almost on a daily basis to find out what we are going to do about the _Eliminatus_ curse. Bill Weasley arrived yesterday, bringing with him a large crate of books about curses, but also something like the smell of the desert, of sun in his hair. When he talks, he makes me feel trapped in this castle. Once upon a time, I used to be a traveller, too. I used to be young, to have adventures, to do magical research in remote countries, and to return laden with stories and strange, exotic artefacts. Back then, I wasn't tied down to a job that forces me to get up early each morning and to teach students, to pound my spells into their brains no matter how they feel about it, no matter how I feel.

Sometimes I almost hate my job. I know I should feel privileged, teaching at this great school, dealing with children who have the rare gift of magical powers. I remind myself that there are good days; days when teaching is easy or even fun, days when I feel I can really convey something to the students. But there are bad days, too, when nothing ever seems to go right, when I feel my job is useless, or maybe it's only me who is hopeless as a teacher. Then I think of Verus, of his frustration. These days, I think I can understand him better. I wonder if he sometimes felt like running away, just like me, if he felt as tied down as me. I ask myself if he was as afraid of remaining in the humdrum of castle affairs till he rotted away; I wonder if he feared growing old just like me.

Of course, as Roary likes to point out to me, right now I shouldn't be afraid of growing old, but rather of not growing old. We are likely to be under siege soon. Any day, we fear that there will be Death Eaters outside our walls, maybe Death Eaters attacking us with the most terrible of curses. Also, we are surprised that we haven't been evicted yet. Dumbledore has received an owl from the Ministry telling him to resign; he hasn't reacted yet, though. Maybe tomorrow they will come and try to take him away, perhaps using violence to convince us. In our meetings, we have repeatedly been talking about evacuating the castle before they come to curse us. We have, however, come to the conclusion that without Hogwarts' protecting walls, there would by no means be less danger to the students – or to ourselves.

Outside, there is almost open war now. Every couple of days, the Daily Prophet reports of street fights between witches and wizards of different groups. There have been a few casualties, one of them being Mundungus Fletcher Junior, the rune expert, a pacifist through and through, which makes me particularly angry. The situation is growing worse and worse. A lot of people have been fired from the Ministry, the majority of them members of Dumbledore's 'order', or people who supported Malfoy's rival, Arthur Weasley. The enemy knows who we are, and knows how to get at us; the enemy rules Magical Britain now. We talk about all of this in our countless meetings, and about ways to defend ourselves against the deadly _Eliminatus_ curse. Roary is right to chide me for my discontent with my job, and my unhappiness regarding the absence of both Verus and Sirius. (Hey – I never _said_ emotions made sense, did I?) I try to keep my feelings to myself and go to the next class and the next meeting like a good girl.

In today's meeting, Flitwick reports of his progress in questioning Peter Pettigrew and Romulus Lupin. The latter seems to cooperate; it was a good idea to get Aisha to talk to him, even if I do say so myself. Romulus has been owling a couple of people to get information on the curse, but they haven't been able to tell him much more than he and Flitwick already knew about it. All of the experts, including Charms teacher Flitwick and former Curse teacher Lupin (imagine, a _Curse_ teacher!), agree that by the normal standards of this curse, it should be impossible to attack this castle with an _Eliminatus_. However, this does not ease our worries. There's got to be something we don't know, something against which we consequently can't prepare a defence. It is pretty scary.

Pettigrew isn't talking at all, Flitwick tells us. This isn't exactly news. Since he has been locked in his cell, he hasn't uttered more than twenty words, I think, and has said nothing useful whatsoever. He is just sitting in his cell, flexing his silver hand, if he moves at all. We have promised him better food and a chance to go outside under supervision if he cooperates – heck, we've got to promise him _something_ – but to no avail. Neither has he signed the confession we have written up for him, the one stating that he betrayed the Potters, faked his own death, killed a couple of Muggles and got Sirius into prison. Shnirk, why should he sign it? He should know by now that we won't resort to torture, which probably doesn't apply to his Lord should he ever return to him.

Then, of course, there is the question of what Lucius Malfoy's son has to do with the curse. I've never met Draco Malfoy, as he already had left the school before I came to teach here, but I've heard a few stories. He's a student at Durmstrang now, which probably suggests that the staff or the students of Durmstrang know something about the curse. Romulus Lupin told us he knows a few teachers of Durmstrang due to an exchange program between two schools; however, it might look suspicious if he asked them for help. The enemy might be warned of what we know – which is very little indeed, but we have to use every tiny advantage we might get. Therefore, he hasn't owled these teachers yet and is asking us for advice, advice nobody really wants to give him.

After Flitwick has finished his discouraging report and the meagre discussion about the disconcerting news has subsided, Dumbledore raises his hand, indicating that he has something to say.

"My dear friends," he addresses us, "matters look bleak indeed, but we must look ahead and bravely face the trials that lie before us. One of the things we therefore should accomplish in this meeting today is to elect a leader and a second- and third-in-command for the defence of this school. It is likely that we will be facing battles soon, and that not all of us will survive these battles. We have to be prepared for such cases, because we must not be without a leader."

"Albus, you are our leader, and Minerva is our second-in-command," Chent Flitwick pipes.

So it was in the past, and so it will be in the future. There are nods all around, but also people glancing around the room. Dumbledore has spoken of a third-in-command, and we haven't got one yet. The absence of Verus is palpable. It is _his_ place we are talking about here; after decades of serving Dumbledore loyally, it should be him to take the place behind Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall. He deserves this honour, or rather, he used to deserve it. More importantly, we need him here, because he is likely to make a good leader in a battle, but Verus isn't among us any longer. It is almost as if he was dead, as if his ghost was present at the meeting. If I'm not mistaken, everybody is thinking of him at this moment, but nobody mentions his name.

Involuntarily, my fingers stray to a worn piece of parchment in my pocket – the last sign we got that he is alive and sane. I know it's silly to keep it there, but somehow it helps having it close.

"I agree with your proposal, Chent," Professor Vector finally replies, "and I suggest Roary Lyons to take the place of the third-in-command."

In terms of charisma and experience, Roary seems the obvious choice, even if he is too junior for such an honour in Hogwarts' unspoken hierarchy. However, this is not the main problem, as Roary is quick to point out himself.

"Thanks, Chent," he says, "I feel very honoured. However, there would be a conflict of interests, so I'm afraid I have to decline."

Flitwick looks confused, but as Professor McGonagall and Dumbledore nod, he accepts that he doesn't need to understand which conflict of interest Roary means. I know, incidentally – you can't lead both the League and Hogwarts, and if both sides needed him, Roary would always choose the League. Of course, his position is largely kept a secret – otherwise it wouldn't be safe for him to walk down a single street in the world. I suppose he would tell the people present at our meeting if the need arose, but as it isn't really necessary, he doesn't elaborate.

"I suggest Chent Flitwick as third-in-command," Heather Sprout says, perhaps only to fill the silence.

All eyes turn towards the tiny Charms teacher. Seated between Roary and Dumbledore, he looks smaller than ever. It is hard to imagine him leading people into battle.

"I am no great war strategist, let alone a fighter," Flitwick pipes up. "Instead, I suggest Professor Cosinus Vector."

The Arithmancy teacher shakes his head. "I certainly wouldn't be a good leader for you," he says. "You all know that I am no fighter, that I have never won a duel in my life, and that I find it difficult to make decisions at short notice. The idea of leading the defence of Hogwarts scares me. What about you, Heather?"

The motherly Head of the House of Hufflepuff chuckles. "You can't be serious, Cosinus," she replies. "Just like you like to hide behind your desk and your formulas, my place is in the greenhouse. What about –"

She looks around, searching for someone to nominate instead. However, there is nobody who fits the job; the absence of Verus has torn a hole in our midst which we can't mend, it seems. Hagrid is present, but of course not suitable, if only because he is not a fully qualified wizard; Sibyl Trelawney, Astra Sinistra and Professor Binns are not usually invited to our meetings, perhaps at their own request. I notice that nobody nominates me, that their glances skid off my face like they skid off Hagrid's. I'm quite relieved at that, because I see myself as a musician, a researcher, perhaps a teacher, but not a war strategist. However, I can't deny that I am also a bit hurt. If they name Cosinus Vector, who is probably the least suitable of us all, and Roary, who has been here shorter than me, omitting me can only mean that in spite of it all, they still won't trust Tom Riddle's daughter. Well, I'm used to that, I suppose. Years ago I intended to join the League, only to be refused membership because of my parentage: Roary knew who I was and discretely told me I was not wanted in the League, and while I understood his point, I was hurt. It was similar with becoming Head of the House of Slytherin: The post is officially still vacant, with Astra Sinistra functioning as stand-in. I wasn't positively keen on it, but feeling some kind of connection to my old house, I would have accepted the post if they had asked me. But they didn't, which, again, hurt a bit. Right now, I feel exactly the same, so I need to remind myself that I really don't want this job.

"I still believe it should be you, Chent," Professor McGonagall finally says a little wearily. "Nobody needs to be tall to lead people into battle – just think of that Muggle, Bonaparte. You have proven your authority many times as the Head of the House of Ravenclaw. You have been Albus' trusted follower, friend and advisor for many decades. I implore you to reconsider."

Flitwick sighs. "I don't want to be third-in-command, and I truly wish there was someone else around who is more suitable for this post, but if you all ask me, I will accept it," he replies.

We all murmur assent; I dutifully join in with the others, mentally chiding myself for feeling sorry for myself. When Dumbledore asks us to raise our hands to vote for Flitwick, we all do – except for Flitwick, who modestly looks at his tiny feet.

After the meeting, Roary asks me whether I want to come along for another attempt to question Pettigrew. I would like to decline, not only because my hatred for the wizard who put Sirius into Azkaban is threatening my professional distance as interrogator, but also because I believe that all our efforts are futile. However, I feel it would not be very nice to refuse, so I promise I will join him: After all, I don't want them to think I am sulking.

Pettigrew is kept in a cell down in the dungeon; unlike Romulus, he has not been permitted to leave it except for his weekly bath, which takes place under strictest supervision. I know that is beneath my dignity to wish Pettigrew a damp cell and bread and water fare, but I suppose I can't be kind and reasonable _all_ the time.

We pick up Romulus Lupin from his cell so he can join the interrogation. We have attempted to get the two of them to talk on their own, hoping that Pettigrew would still trust Romulus and therefore confide in him. However, it soon became evident that Pettigrew doesn't tell Romulus a whit more than he told us – namely nothing. We tried bribery and flattery, we tried threats, we tried different kinds of _Veritaserum_, but all has been useless – it seems if Voldemort has decided to close a mind, he can close it for good.

This time doesn't seem to be any different. The terms _'Eliminatus'_ and 'Draco Malfoy' leave Pettigrew's face immobile; only the eerie silvery hand opens and closes, opens and closes, as if run by a clockwork. As the usual questioning doesn't have any effect, Roary takes out a vial containing a small amount of a brownish, opaque potion. He has been studying Verus' notes, notes which document the use of potions on Dolores Lestrange in Azkaban. He has hinted at their danger, implying that Dumbledore might not exactly approve if he knew what vile concoction we give our prisoner. However, I suppose Roary knows what he is doing; if not, I'm positive Verus knew, so I see no reason to object.

Dangerous as the potion is said to be, it has no other effect than to make Pettigrew tremble visibly. However, he has nothing to say about the _Eliminatus_ curse, or about Draco Malfoy, or about Durmstrang, something Roary brings up. There does not appear to be any kind of emotion in Pettigrew; after swallowing the potion without complaint, he just continues to stare beyond us. If Lord Voldemort takes possession of a mind, he does so rather effectively, it seems.

After a rather frustrating half an hour, we leave. Out in the hallway leading to the cell, Romulus suddenly says: "You know, I really wish I could write to some of the Durmstrang teachers and ask what is going on. Ludmila Davies, for example, the Combat Magic teacher – when the students and I went to Durmstrang last year, I met her, and she actually mentioned Pettigrew to me, so I'm sure she's working for the Dark Lord. She also mentioned a common project the students might work on this spring while the Durmstrang students are visiting Boston Magical High. Right now, she and her students are over there if everything worked according to schedule. I could contact her; the only problem is that she must have noticed I'm not at Boston Magical High right now. This might look suspicious, especially as the Dark Lord might have informed her of the reason for my absence. Also, I can't find any convincing reason to ask her whether she has anything to do with the curse."

"Even by sending her an owl asking a few questions, you could completely blow your cover, and, by the way, endanger Remus and Sirius," Roary replies, nodding. I am glad that he mentioned it, because I immediately worried about the same: Once word gets really around that Romulus Lupin should not be trusted any more, Voldemort's followers might try much harder to find out the whereabouts of his hostages. I wish we could find a way for Romulus to have them set free.

"Of course, I could try to impersonate Pettigrew and see if Ludmila and her colleagues still trust _him_," Romulus says very quietly, as if he didn't really want us to hear.

For a moment, nobody says anything. What Romulus is suggesting comes close to a suicide mission.

"It might actually work, you know," Roary says, adapting the volume of his voice to Romulus' as if he was afraid to say such things aloud. When he continues, he sticks to long words, something he sometimes does when he wants to hide the emotions behind an utterance. "Voldemort must be aware that something went amiss for Pettigrew, but it seems hardly likely that he wants this broadcasted. It's quite possible that Voldemort's followers have not been informed that Pettigrew has disappeared. In that case, you could, with an adequate amount of Polyjuice Potion, successfully pose for Pettigrew and elicit the relevant information."

Romulus grimaces. "I could, just as well, get fried, tortured and cursed to death."

"I can't deny it," Roary replies. I try to read in his face, because I want to know what's going on before I make up my mind about the whole thing. As far as eliciting information, this seems to be the first plan that might actually work. On the other hand, the whole thing is rather dangerous, not only for Sirius and Remus, but most of all for Romulus.

Somehow I have rather taken to him, maybe because I believe he really is in love with Aisha, maybe because in some ways, he seems to be refreshingly different from most witches and wizards in the castle: He is far less idealistic than they are. True, he has a sense of conscience, of right or wrong; otherwise, I certainly wouldn't like him. But he is not as heroic as some; he is absolutely interested in saving his own skin. I admit it makes me like him no less; to be honest, I am quite fond of my own skin, too. I put myself into his shoes and realise that he must be terrified of his own idea. That's why he doesn't look happy about Roary taking the bait of his outrageous suggestion.

Of course, there is another dimension to it: If we let Romulus go, how do we know whether he will really go to Durmstrang and spy for us there? How do we know he won't go straight to the Dark Lord with everything he has seen and heard around here? I can see the same doubts mirrored in Roary's face. He has never trusted Romulus, still sees him as a political opponent, a member of the _Magical Society_, an enemy of the League, and I do admit he has a point there. It's the same dilemma as letting Romulus go so he can free Sirius and Remus for us: We need his help, but if we want it, we have to trust him.

By now, Romulus has also figured this out. "So – do you trust me enough to let me go?" he asks Roary with a crooked grimace, obviously aware that, while it's Dumbledore's word that counts most in this matter, Roary's is not unimportant either. His face and posture express ambivalence. Either way, he wins and loses at the same time. If we don't trust him, he can't get free – but, at least for some time, he will be safe here. If we trust him, however, and give him back his freedom to roam the world outside, he is morally bound to go on an extremely dangerous quest – if he feels bound by his word, that is.

"Dumbledore has to decide what to do," I tell him. Roary nods in an affirmative way; so does Romulus.

"We really could use your help – but Aisha won't like to see you go on this dangerous mission," I continue, half-intending to remind him of his moral obligations.

"You really think so?" he asks, his glance furtive and hopeful at the same time.

"Yes, I think so," I reply truthfully.


	32. Neville

32 – Neville 

The monthly trip to the stone circle, established as an institution a year and a half ago, had become as normal as the change of the moon to Ginny and Neville. In their agendas they marked the dates of the full moon along with class tests and friends' birthday; it wasn't as if Professor Varlerta still had to announce a few days ahead of time that yes, they were going to the stone circle on the night of the full moon again. She just reminded them on the very day, expecting her apprentices to be ready and to decide for themselves what they needed to pack besides their wands and their instruments.

In winter, they had needed warm coats, extra jumpers and woolly socks. Now, as May had passed its summit, such precautions were no longer needed; instead, Varlerta, Ginny and Neville, packed the emergency Portkeys provided by Flitwick. Leaving the castle grounds had become a bit of a risk. Before the election had been lost, they had only had to worry about accidentally bumping into a group of Death Eaters. Now, potential pursuers might very well be both working for the Ministry and Death Eaters at the same time. Right or wrong had become confused, Neville thought. At Hogwarts, things had not changed too much; outside, however, life had become troubled for many. Ginny's parents, for example, had left the Burrow and built themselves a small cabin in the League camp which was hidden in the castle grounds. After Arthur had lost his job at the Ministry, small attacks on Weasley family members had convinced them that they were no longer safe in their home. Neville knew that Ginny worried a lot about them, although she refused to talk about it. She appeared to see her father's failure to win the election and his subsequent unemployment as a matter of personal shame, something Neville found entirely foolish.

Toying with the two objects in his robes' pockets, his wand and the small glass disk Portkey safely enclosed in a leather etui, he waited for Ginny by the Portrait Hole. She was late, and not for the first time; probably she had been off smooching with Joolz again, Neville thought wryly. At her approach, he opened the Portrait Hole without another word. He knew that jealousy did not suit him, but he could not help thinking dark thoughts. Ginny and Joolz looked so happy, and Neville was still on his own. During band practice on the day before, they had kissed several times. Neville knew that they did not do it to hurt him; again and again he told himself that he valued Ginny as a close friend and that he liked the guitar player of his band well enough, too. It was no use. Even looking at Ginny, even walking towards Varlerta's building by her side hurt him. Trying to keep the hurt to himself was all he could do.

When they arrived, their teacher was packing her portable amplifier, guitar case and the smaller Shaman drum into Drifter's boot. The Ensouled car was busy toying with its automatic radio antenna, a new acquirement from some Muggle garage, it seemed. Ginny laughed good-naturedly when the car swung its antenna around in a circle, withdrew it and extended again, all the while merrily beeping its horn. All Neville managed was a weak smile. When Ginny moved to the boot to store her larger Shaman drum in it, Varlerta looked up.

"I've got to talk to you," she said, looking serious. "Let's sit down for a minute before we leave."

The two of them sat down on the stairs leading up to the building's front door, while Varlerta drew up a large flower pot to sit on its stony edge, wiping the edge to avoid dirtying her robes' rear side.

"We've received an owl from – from a spy," she told them. "We have to expect a major attack of the enemy this summer. They want to direct a big, evil spell at us, a spell that may kill us all. We have to fight against this spell. I have spoken to Dumbledore. Our music magic will have to take an important part in our defence. We have to prepare for that."

The scared look on Ginny's face mirrored Neville's own feelings. "What is it we have to fight against?" he asked.

Varlerta's lips became very thin and pale; she looked upset, but determined. "They will use a spell against us which is called _Eliminatus_. To magnify the spell, they will try to employ the minds of children and adolescents as channels of energy, or rather, of anti-matter, our source tells us. What we need to do is confuse their minds to hinder the channelling process. This is where our music magic comes in. We will Coax them, more precisely, use the methods of Coaxing human minds to confuse them. Or rather, I will, and I'm asking you whether you will help me. I'm talking about a big and dangerous project. There's no guarantee that we will succeed, or come out of this unhurt. Even if we succeed, our work may have unwanted consequences. Our defence may end up hurting or killing others, maybe children who are younger than you. I want you to know this before you decide."

"What happens if we do not want to participate?" Ginny asked, her face so pale that her freckles showed off like specks of dirt.

"I don't know," Varlerta admitted. "In spite of the information we got from our sources, there is no telling how strong the enemy will be." She hesitated briefly, but then she seemed to make up her mind to tell them the truth. "The staff fears the worst. We believe we are in mortal danger. There has been talk of evacuating the castle, but we have come to the conclusion that our protection lies in its thick and deeply magical walls, and in our number. It seems we will have the best chances of fending off the enemy if we stay here, because if we divide up into small groups and desert the castle, it's quite likely that Voldemort and his followers will find us nevertheless. If we stick together in this defence, our chances of survival look better than if we split up."

Ginny's eyes had grown large with fear. "I didn't think things had become _that_ bad," she whispered. Neville nodded in agreement with her.

Looking increasingly weary, the teacher replied tonelessly: "I'm sorry, kids – I wish I had better things to tell you, but it seems things have indeed become that bad."

For some seemingly endless seconds, nobody said a word. Finally Ginny told Varlerta in a clear, steady voice: "Show me what I have to do."

Until he had heard her decision, Neville had not even felt there was something he could decide. It seemed the choice boiled down to either killing or being killed, and he didn't want to choose between such things. But when Ginny spoke, he knew that he could not back out now. "I'm with you," he said quietly.

Varlerta nodded. "I'm glad to hear that," she said, but she did not smile.

After a short pause, she added: "By the way, I'd like to take someone else along to the stone circle tonight. We need all the help we can get for Coaxing humans, so I believe we should train Roary and see how things will work for the four of us. Is that okay with you two?"

Neville was surprised about being asked his opinion; teachers didn't normally do that as far as his experience went. His surprise must have shown, because Varlerta explained:

"When we do some serious magic together, we must work as a team. I still see myself as some sort of leader in this particular group on grounds of my experience and of habit, but I certainly wouldn't want to be a dictator. That wouldn't be good for the team. We must get along, because disharmony in a group is fatal – even more so in a group doing music magic together. I have known you for some time, and neither of you seems to have a tendency to make rash or silly decisions. That's why I value your opinion."

"I don't mind having Roary with us," Ginny said. Neville nodded his agreement.

"I have a question, though," Ginny asked. "Shouldn't we ask Joolz, too – and Rhonda, and Kay? They are also musicians, and witches or wizards. If you say we need all the help we can get, shouldn't we take them along?"

Neville felt his heart sink. He did not want his band mates in the stone circle. Even if he could never have Ginny as a girlfriend, he still cherished the special kind of company he had found in her and Professor Varlerta. It was nice to share music with his band; music _magic_, however, had created a special bond between the three of them he did not want to share with anyone else. Roary would be an intruder, too – but he was an adult, a friendly one as far as he knew, and would not disturb his special relationship with Ginny. His other band mates, especially Joolz, were another matter to him. If Joolz and Ginny did music magic together, if she permitted the Ravenclaw guitarist to weave his tunes into her rhythm and alter reality with their music, Joolz would replace Neville in the only spot where he had believed himself to be irreplaceable.

"I've thought about it, but I admit I'm against it," Varlerta replied to Neville's relief. "Your band mates are musicians, true, but they know almost nothing about music magic. We would have to train them from the very beginning, and we have no time for that. I've been teaching Roary bits and pieces of music magic for years, and in some instances he even helped me develop some of it. He's not trained, but he's no novice either; with your band mates, it would be different. Also, I don't know them well enough to entrust them with such an important and dangerous task – not like I know you two, at any rate. Kay is too young, anyway – and Rhonda and Joolz are busy with their instruments and with Quidditch. It's not only your training they lack, but also your motivation. All in all, I consider it too big of a risk to include them in our training."

Ginny nodded; so did Neville. Varlerta's explanations made sense.

Seeing them nod, the teacher rose and opened the door of her building. Grabbing a light denim jacket, Roary came out, strikingly handsome as always.

"Hi, kids," he said kindly.

"Hello, Professor Lyons," Ginny said politely. Neville suddenly remembered that Ginny, unlike him, had not dropped out of Potions, so Roary was one of her teachers.

"Hi Ginny," Roary replied. "Er – do you think you could possibly call me something less formal during our training – and _still_ call me Professor in class like all the other students?"

"I should be able to do that," Ginny replied a bit pompously while getting into Drifter's backseat behind Roary.

"Good," Professor Varlerta commented and slammed her door shut. Then she gently tapped the car's steering wheel with her fingers. Drifter did not need any more prompting; the car rose into the air immediately and sped off in the direction of the stone circle.

While flying through the darkening sky, Varlerta and Roary taught Ginny and Neville a little tune that was new to them. It had a heavy, punctuated rhythm and somehow felt like it was dragging a foot, rather than skipping merrily like many punctuations; its small range of a minor third gave it a slightly humdrum sound. The words were a combination of ba-da-doom sounds; Varlerta said their purpose was only to enhance the feeling of the tune, not to convey any kind of meaning. "It is a focussing tune," she said when the car spiralled down to land on the deserted moor. "It will help our group to become one."

They entered the stone circle reverently, taking off their shoes and keeping their heads down to hint at a small bow. As usual, Varlerta did not take her electric guitar into the circle at first, trusting in the power of their combined voices and the two Shamanic drums to get the circle's acceptance. Behind her, Roary, Ginny and Neville were falling into the rhythm of her chanting, greeting the circle with the focussing tune.

Neville enjoyed the feel of the heather beneath his bare feet and the slight evening breeze in his face. The sky was turning a dark, bluish purple; pompous low clouds retained a rusty tinge. As often, he felt a deep and calm happiness take hold of him upon entering the magical realm of the stone circle. He didn't much care for the humdrum tune, but over time, he gave himself completely to singing it and walking the circle. Roary's powerful voice led them to join in with him until they sounded like one voice rather than four. To the rhythm of the two drums, their feet made soft, slightly thudding sounds on the ground, until walking, singing and keeping in time with the drums became one to Neville.

They walked for a long, long time. For a while, Neville wondered vaguely whether it would soon be time for him and Varlerta to switch to flute and guitar, but more and more he became immersed in the chanting, forgetting even why they had come. He lost himself in their mingled voices and the rhythm of the drums, becoming one with Ginny, Varlerta and even Roary. The power of the soil itself seemed to flood his body, causing a vague bliss. Neither did he feel his sore feet nor his aching throat. He walked. He sang. He absorbed the power of the circle. He became one with the group.

When Varlerta finally handed him his flute, a remote corner of his mind thought that it had to be well past midnight, but then he only put his fingers on the flute, continuing automatically the melody of the chant. It didn't occur to him to play anything else, any of the other tunes of power which they had used on all other visits to the stone circle. Behind him, a powerful, distorted throbbing joined in with tune and rhythm – Varlerta's electric guitar, coming from the small portable amplifier she had strapped onto her back. Roary's voice, clear and strong, soared above her riffs, mingling with the notes of Neville's flute. The world blurred before Neville's eyes, giving way to a kind of vision. Suddenly he saw a turreted castle enveloped in a blue light, slowly fading into nothingness. A group of children stood before it, uniform in their black robes, their eyes empty of emotion or human intelligence. His arms, numb with fatigue, dropped upon the sight; the flute sank away from his lips. "The father – the father will sacrifice the son, and the son will overcome the father," he heard himself whisper. Then he lost consciousness.

When he awoke, he was on Drifter's backseat, wrapped in a blanket. Not too far from him, Ginny's eyes glistened fearfully in the darkness, reflecting some distant light. They were flying, he realised; although the ride in the Ensouled car was completely smooth, somehow his body could feel that they had lost touch with the ground.

"What happened?" he murmured.

"You passed out," Ginny replied in a hushed voice. "You must have had a vision or something, Varlerta said, because you said funny things."

"Did he wake up?" Varlerta asked, turning around to the backseat. She sounded worried.

"Yes, I did," Neville replied, suddenly embarrassed.

"Are you okay?" Varlerta asked. Roary made an inarticulate, questioning noise, joining in with her concern.

"I'm fine," Neville assured them quickly. "I don't know what happened. There's nothing to worry about."

"Did you have a vision?" Roary asked, curiosity in his voice.

Neville thought for a while. Then he replied: "I think I saw Hogwarts, and there was a blue light, and children. I remember no more."

"You said something about a father and a son sacrificing each other, or something of that kind," Varlerta reminded him in a choked voice.

Neville nodded noiselessly; then, realising she couldn't see him nod, he replied: "I have no idea why I said that. It had nothing to do with the things I saw."

"Strange," Varlerta admitted. "Maybe we should ask Sibyl Trelawney. It sounds like her kind of thing."

"Hermione says Trelawney's an old fraud," Ginny commented.

Varlerta sighed. "So I've heard, too, but it doesn't mean she doesn't know anything about Divination – rather that like most seers, she isn't very reliable. We still should ask her, because she's the best we are going to get. Neville, are you willing to tell her about your vision tomorrow?"

Neville realised he had been on the brink of falling asleep. It took him a moment to make sense of Professor Varlerta's words, but he was able to reconstruct them in retrospect.

"Sure, I'll go to see her tomorrow after classes," he murmured, realising his speech was blurring a bit.

Not without a certain apprehension did Neville climb up to Professor Trelawney's tower the next day. He felt unsure of himself; after all, he had left Divination class as soon as he had been able to without entirely losing face. He had never been any good at it at all. To now go to Professor Trelawney to tell her he'd had a vision seemed ludicrous, if not preposterous. He was mortally afraid he'd be laughed at. Facing the professor's trapdoor, he recounted his reasons for going: He'd promised to Professor Varlerta he'd go and ask Trelawney; Professor Varlerta took his vision seriously; there were no students likely to be still around who could laugh at him, so the worst he had to fear was the teacher's scorn. Last but not least, he felt he was filled to the brim with the power gained from the stone circle. He hadn't tried it yet – he'd learned to control himself in class because he hated his classmates drawing comparison between the empowered and the unempowered Neville. After he'd gotten this visit over with, he reminded himself, he would practice Coaxing humans with Ginny and Varlerta, something he was looking forward to. They would probably do notably better than usually. All he had to do was live through this little encounter. He knocked.

"Dear, you have been standing beneath that door a long time before you came in, but I knew you would eventually knock," Professor Trelawney greeted him. With her glasses magnifying her eyes and her shimmering silk garment, she looked more than ever like a dragonfly. "Sit down, my dear," she said, indicating one of the cushions on the floor.

Neville sat, wondering where to start. His throat felt dry.

"You've seen something, a vision, and you want me to tell you what it means," Professor Trelawney stated.

Neville found her way of predicting things uncanny. Was she a mind-reader, or was it common that students approached her with such questions? "It's true," he said. Then he repeated his vision to her, ending with the words he somehow remembered saying at the end of it.

"Professor Lyons and Professor Varlerta said that the _Eliminatus_ curse sometimes shines with a blue light, so I might have seen the actual thread of the Death Eaters and the children attacking the castle," he commented. "What I can't understand is that thing about the father and the son. Who does the vision talk about – any real persons, or is it just a symbol or something like that?"

Professor Trelawney was quiet for what seemed a long time. "I don't know yet," she replied. "I think you should write down your vision, and the things you said, and leave it for me to meditate on it." She thought for a minute; then she added in her usual, ominous voice: "It sounds like doom is upon us, and dark days are to come."

This sounded like usual Trelawney talk. Nevertheless, Neville took the parchment and quill she handed to him and tried his best to recount everything he had seen, heard and said. After he had finished, he blew on the piece of parchment to dry the ink and handed it back to her. "This is all I remember," he said quietly.

Professor Trelawney took the parchment from him without another comment, nodding in assent as well as in parting. Neville nodded back and rose from his seat. He realised that she had neither predicted his death nor mentioned his clumsiness. He had to be moving ahead in life, away from the clumsy, despised boy.

"Come back tomorrow – maybe I can tell you more," Professor Trelawney told him.

"Thank you," Neville said as he left through the trap door.

Professor Varlerta had asked a couple of Ravenclaw fourth year students to be guinea pigs for their Coaxing experiment. She had promised them they wouldn't be subjected to anything ridiculous or humiliating, and had probably bribed them with extra credit to get their cooperation.

While the students waited outside Varlerta's building in the fading spring afternoon, the two teachers took Ginny and Neville inside for a short briefing: The trial persons, Varlerta argued, were not to know what they were supposed to do, because they were courteous and cooperating and might comply out of friendliness without being properly Coaxed if they knew what was expected of them.

"The first thing we'll do is to make them dance," Varlerta told them. "We'll play a little waltz and Coax them to dance to it. It will be easy, because it will come natural to them once they hear the music. The next thing we'll do is Coax them to sit down on the grass. I asked them not to wear their best clothes, so this shouldn't be a problem in any way. Last we'll Coax them to jump up and down, clap and shout 'Ravenclaw!' This shouldn't count as being against the rules either, because that's what they do whenever their Quidditch team is playing. However, it's more complex than the other things, so it will be the hardest."

The four of them went outside. Varlerta had already set up her portable amplifier and guitar; while she was strapping the instrument around her shoulders, Neville assembled his flute, and Ginny got her drum ready. Then Varlerta started on a simple chord progression in three-four time. Throughout hours of band practice, Neville had learned to develop an ear for chord progressions and to find notes to go with it. After a few trials, he had a simple, but entrancing melody to go with Varlerta's waltz. Ginny's rhythm was soft and plain, but strangely hypnotising. Then Roary fell in, singing of the pleasure of flying with the music, of giving your body up to it, without ever using the words 'dancing' or 'waltzing'.

Neville tried to make his melody sing of the joy of dancing. He remembered the few waltzes he had shared with Ginny, a long time ago on that Yule ball as well at the party at the end of the last school year. Before the _Glaciera_ curse had put an end to that party, he'd swung her around, feeling light-footed in his socks, the room spinning around them as if he was in a kind of buzz. A good waltz, his flute sung, told of yearning and of bliss at the same time and transferred you into a different, a circular world.

Wrapped up in his playing, he hadn't noticed how successful they'd been until Ginny bumped her elbow into the side, all the while never breaking her rhythm. There the Ravenclaws were: A couple was already dancing in full swing, while the others were rocking in time with the waltz. Just as he looked, a girl grabbed the boy next to her, and swung him around. Eagerly, the boy pulled her towards him, and the two of them were dancing on the lawn.

Varlerta gave them a nod and muted her notes a bit, becoming softer and softer. Ginny, Neville and Roary followed suit, playing a _diminuendo_, letting the waltz fade towards nothing. The dancing of the Ravenclaw students became less intense; after a few fading bars, the second couple to have been dancing let go of each other, looking at each other with astonishment, while the first couple sank into each other's arms. Just as Neville decided to stop playing altogether, Varlerta raised her eyebrows. He got her meaning immediately. In soft, breathy notes, he let his flute talk of taking a rest, of relaxing, of sitting down on the grass. Roary hummed a soothing little melody, while Varlerta held a chord and Ginny tapped the skin of her drum lightly with her fingertips. A little hesitantly, the Ravenclaws sat.

Ginny, Neville and Varlerta put their instruments down and beamed at each other. Roary grinned at them. "Thank you," Varlerta said to her guinea pigs. "You're a big help. Take a rest."

After musicians and dancers had caught their breath, Varlerta told the Ravenclaws: "Thank you, again. There's one more thing I want you to do for us. Just listen to the music and do whatever comes to your mind." Obediently, the Ravenclaws remained where they were, waiting for what came next.

Neville's eyes were on the flute. He was wondering how to go about the third task the teachers had set for them. First of all they had to create enthusiasm and an overflow of energy; that wouldn't be too difficult. They should be able to make the students jump up and down, even to make them cheer. But make them shout "Ravenclaw!" – that was another matter. He realised they had to convey more than an emotion – they had to transmit a word in their music, and that was by far more difficult. True, it wasn't any utterly absurd word to these students – after all, they were used to cheering their house. However, the usual stimulus of a Quidditch game was missing. Neville wondered how to get the word across to them – could he put a word in his music? He decided to try thinking very hard of the word while playing.

After nodding to each other to signal they were ready, the musicians and the singer one after the other fell into a cheerful, up-tempo tune. Almost immediately, the students got up and started to smile. After a few bars, they started to bounce around a bit, then to cheer wordlessly, to whistle in applause and even to jump up and down. However, no articulate words came out of their mouths.

'Ravenclaw,' Neville tried to convey in his thoughts and in his music, 'Ravenclaw!' But nothing happened. Neither he nor the others seemed to be successful in any way with getting the word across.

The cheers of the Ravenclaw weakened a bit; their voices were turning hoarse. Neville saw Varlerta frowning; the teacher wasn't happy, and probably she was wondering whether to cut short the experiment, or just rely on Madam Pomfrey's cough potions and keep the Ravenclaws cheering. He heard his own playing drift off into triviality; he wasn't getting anything across, he felt.

He could not permit himself to develop any sad thoughts, he decided – he had to keep their guinea pigs cheering, cheering like in a Quidditch match, when the players were zooming around high in the air, speeding around after balls brushing past them so quickly that they became blurs of colour. He closed his eyes to see the red and the gold, and then the silver and the blue. A Gryffindor player almost was hit by a Bludger, while two Ravenclaw chasers were passing on the Quaffle. Oops – was that the Snitch? Playing quick and breathy notes on his flute, Neville zoomed in on Cho Chang, who was speeding after the little golden flash. Her eager face let him forget his own loyalties, and with his playing, he urged her on; he wanted her to catch it, to win. Faster and faster she flew, until suddenly – he almost stumbled over his own notes – she stopped in mid-air, raised her arm into the air, and in it shone – the golden Snitch.

"Ravenclaw, Ravenclaw," the students shouted, clapping and jumping up and down, their eyes closed. Neville could see Varlerta beam and look at her fellow musicians in turn as if to find out who had succeeded in Coaxing them into shouting the very word they had been trying to get across. He avoided her eyes, almost ashamed of the feeling of pride welling up in him: If he wasn't mistaken, _he_ was the one who had succeeded.

The four of them let the music die off. The Ravenclaws tumbled down on the lawn, this time needing no Coaxing for this. "This was amazing," one of the girls said. "It was like at a Quidditch match!"

"It _was_ a Quidditch match," another girl retorted. "I saw it as clearly as anything – Cho was outspeeding that Gryffindor seeker – what was his name again?"

Varlerta looked at them curiously. "You saw that? That's interesting." She looked questioningly at Roary, then at Ginny. Both shook their head almost imperceptibly. At Neville she looked last. He wasn't sure how to react, so he cast his eyes at the ground, signalling neither a yes nor a no. For him, it was almost too much to guess he had been the one to accomplish their task, but to have it discussed among everybody else was not what he wanted right now.

With thanks, Varlerta sent the Ravenclaw students away. Then the four musicians went inside to have a cup of tea.

"That was great," Ginny said to Varlerta. "I never thought we'd be able to do such things. It's amazing."

"I'm surprised at our success, too," the teacher replied, her eyes resting on Neville.

"I admit I am also impressed by the headway you've made," Roary said.

"Oh, I wish Joolz was here," Ginny said. "How much better we might have even done if we had trained him, too."

Neville felt anger well up in him. He was the one Ginny had been training with for almost two years now; _he_'d been the one to Coax the Ravenclaw students into shouting the right thing. And now, all Ginny could think of was her lover. He was hurt, but he didn't say anything.

"I found it harder than anything getting a verbal message across," Varlerta said to no-one in particular. "Emotions are much easier." Again, she looked at Neville as she spoke.

He nodded in response, sipping his tea, while Roary said: "But that's one of the characteristics in music, of course – it's mainly abstract and absolute without any specific meaning."

"Music's got the meaning you put into it," Varlerta replied.

"Music's got the meaning the _listener_ puts into it," Roary retorted. "If you want to Coax your listeners, much more your ignorant or maybe even hostile listeners, you have to make damn sure you get the right thing across."

"But there's – not universal things, but conventions in music," Varlerta argued. "Like the fact we all think a tune in a minor key sounds sad. It's a convention, but it still works almost universally."

Ginny made a show of looking at her watch. "Well, I think I've got to get going," she said.

Varlerta looked up at her. "Thanks, you've been a great help."

Neville wasn't sure whether to follow her. He would have liked to spend time alone with Ginny, maybe to talk to her, but he didn't want to leave a conversation that might be interesting – particularly as the chances were Ginny was only leaving to meet Joolz. Still undecided, he got up, too.

"You don't think you could change your mind about Joolz?" Ginny asked the teacher.

Varlerta started saying something, but Neville blurted out rather loudly: "Joolz, all you ever think about is Joolz. He's not perfect, you know that? He's not a music mage like – like _us_."

Ginny's eyes narrowed at him. "Jealous, are you?" she asked softly.

Neville felt his cheeks go hot. "It's not that, it's just that you are making an ass out of yourself." He hadn't meant it that way, hadn't even meant to speak out at all, and now that everyone was looking at him, he felt like running and hiding.

"Oh, am I?" Ginny asked. She had gone pale. "Well, look who's talking."

"Ginny? Neville?" Varlerta addressed them. "Er – you shouldn't be arguing. You need to work together, remember? Not only are you in a band together, but you also need to cooperate in saving this castle from a deadly curse. You are too important to argue about silly, personal things."

Both students stared at her.

"I mean what I say," she told them firmly. "As I told you, harmony among us is an absolute necessity if we want to work well together. And working well together is absolutely vital at the moment. Before you argue about things of minor importance, remember that the fate of this castle and everybody living here may well be decided by us four, or maybe even the two of you. If we fail because you two argue, it may be the end of Hogwarts."


	33. Hermione

**33 ****–**** Hermione **

Given the circumstances, a trip to the Department for the Discovery of Lost Lines just for the sake of a research project seemed ridiculously risky. After all, it was a department of the Ministry of Magic, what's more, a decidedly pureblood-supportive one. Therefore, when she told Ambrose Bears about her History of Magic project and he suggested to take her to the DDLL, she was surprised, at first even a bit reluctant. Giving the subject some more thought, however, she decided that Ambrose, who had even managed to keep his job as a much-needed Unspeakable, probably knew what he was doing. Moreover, she knew she might not get a second chance to finish her project and get her NEWT credit, so she finally took him up on the offer.

After getting a permit to miss Potions class one afternoon to take her trip, Hermione let Ambrose lead her into Hogsmeade's post office, where the Unspeakable obtained a ticket for the public high security Floo entrance. The fireplace, neat, huge and embellished with an owl, the symbol of wizard post, took them straight to a fireplace on the second floor of the Ministry of Magic building.

Hermione had never been in the much-famed Ministry before. She almost found it a bit of a let-down – with its grey linoleum floors and slightly cracked paint, the building had the slightly dreary atmosphere of Muggle office buildings, she thought. Reading her face correctly, Ambrose told her:

"They are re-decorating now – that's one thing the new government seems to be doing correctly. Of course, they are starting with the official entrance hall with its main door and main Floo fireplace. They just haven't gotten around to this corner yet, but it will probably be made pretty, too."

Hermione couldn't help wonder whether Ambrose had chosen the upstairs, remote fireplace so she wouldn't be seen in the entrance hall. However, it also seemed convenient: After they had walked down the hallway and rounded one corner, Ambrose told her they had reached their destination, pointing to a shiny brass sign saying 'DDLL' on it.

"You just go ahead," he told her. "I'll go downstairs to pop in at work for an hour or two. When I'm done, I'll return here to check on you, and if you need more time, I can always go back downstairs."

"I didn't know you worked here," Hermione replied, surprised. "You always seem to hang around the castle."

Ambrose grinned. "I don't really need to actually be here a lot to work. If you are an Unspeakable, your own location is secondary. However, as I'm here, I might as well check how the others are coping and see a few things with my own eyes – my outer eyes, I should say. – Well, good luck with your research – I'll come and pick you up later." And with these words, he Disapparated with a small _pop_.

Hermione shook her head in confusion. Whenever Ambrose hinted at the matters related to his work, it made her curious, but she knew she wasn't supposed to know any more about it. She noticed her heart was beating strongly, because now she had to enter the notorious department on her own. She had been hoping Ambrose would come with her, but now he had gone. Well, it couldn't be helped. Hermione took a deep breath and knocked. When no reply came, she tried the door handle and found the door unlocked, so she entered.

The room was long, narrow and windowless; every single square foot of its walls was covered by bookshelves containing a multitude of uniform leather-bound books. At the desk near the door, an old witch with a neat, grey bun of hair and horn-rimmed spectacles was dusting an old tome reverently. She looked up and peered at Hermione through her glasses in a way that told tales of her near-sightedness. "Come in, dear," she said. "What can the department do for you?"

"I'm working for a school project in History of Magic, trying to find out the history of the four ghosts of Hogwarts," Hermione told the witch. She realised she was shaking: Would the witch call any kind of guards and take her prisoner because she was coming from Hogwarts? Of course, she wasn't doing anything illegal, and neither was it illegal to be a student at the school, which still had not been officially evicted. However, with a new government in place, and tales of people being arrested for trifles or disappearing altogether, you could never be so sure that abstaining from illegal activities meant you were on the side of the law.

However, the grey-haired witch batted no eye at her information, but took a leather-bound list from the drawer of her desk.

"Using the department files for research costs three galleons a day. Using the file globe is twenty-three sickles per use. A complete recovery of your lineage costs between forty and seventy galleons, depending on how far we have to go back into your non-wizard ancestry. You are a half-blood, I take it?"

Hermione suppressed her anger. Hadn't the witch understood her? Neglecting the question, she replied: "I don't want my lineage recovered. I'm just here for my school project."

The witch gave her a condescending smile. "I know, I know, dear. I was telling you _just in case_."

Hermione glanced over the multitude of books. This was no time to argue. "Excuse me, what is the file globe, and how is it used?" she asked.

The witch beckoned her closer and opened a chest standing beside her desk. Resting on a green velvet lining was a globe of solid glass, roughly the size of a water melon. Fighting the suspicion that its purpose was related to Divination, Hermione asked: "What do you do with it?"

"It tells you where you can find all the information that is not cross-referenced in our files," the witch replied. "For most wizard families, we keep files and family trees, so it is usually easy to find out who is related to whom. This is especially necessary if you are not only looking for paternal lines, which are usually connected by the same name, but also for maternal lines, where the name of the mother is lost for the next generation. Information of this kind is cross-referenced in all our files. Unfortunately, some wizard families also have Muggle relations, acquired by marriage or squib births. On these, we keep no information in the files, but if you use the file globe, it will tell you where to go on looking. In the basement, we keep copies of all British Muggle files on matters of birth and relation. As long as you are limiting your search for people born and married in this country, there should be no dead ends for your search in this department."

Hermione ignored the slight to having Muggle relations. This sounded to be too good to be true. Like everyone who works a lot in a library, she knew how it was: You followed up some piece of information in a book, but the book only took you so far. If you were lucky, it held a reference to other books. If you were unlucky, it didn't, which could mean that you had no idea which book to turn to. It wasn't reading the books that was challenging about library research – it was knowing into which books to look. In genealogy, where the logical link between two people was not always easy to find, this was especially the case. A tool that helped you find connections of this kind out was invaluable, Hermione knew.

Of course, if each use of the tool cost her twenty-three sickles, she would have to use it sparingly: In spite of all ambitions, she was reluctant to spend all her remaining pocket money for the school year in the Ministry of Magic, furthering its politics with her small funds. Therefore, she asked:

"How do I look for a person in the files?"

"All original entries are ordered per date of birth, and then alphabetically. These you can find in the green tomes. Then we keep reference books for all great wizard families, which also contain family trees with dates of birth. These are the red tomes, which are ordered alphabetically. But before you start looking, I must ask you to pay the research fee."

Suppressing a sigh, Hermione took out her purse and handed the witch three golden galleons. She hated to pay so much money, because she believed that libraries should be free for everyone to use, but she knew arguing would be pointless. Dropping the money in a small, wooden treasure chest, the witch asked: "Now, who are you looking for?"

Making a random decision about which ghost to start with, Hermione replied: "Dorothea Julia Wallich. I don't know the birth date, but I believe it must have been middle to late seventeenth century."

"Wallich," the witch said, respect in her voice. "Now, this was a respectable wizard family. Unfortunately, the paternal has died out in the nineteenth century, I believe."

With these words, she went to the shelves and Summoned one of many identical-looking tomes.

"Wallich," she repeated with satisfaction. "There you are, dear."

Slightly awed, Hermione opened the age-stained leather-bound book. She found that it was a family chronicle detailing events like births, marriages and deaths sorted by year. The last page of the book unfolded. Straightening out a large sheet of hemp paper made to last, Hermione found a family tree dating back into the twelfth century. There was a multitude of Wallichs, but also many other names connected to the great family by intermarriage. She felt like running her finger over the paper to trace the many names she knew, but thought better of it, fearing she might harm the old document she was holding. She easily found the Grey Lady, Dorothea Julia Wallich, who had been born in 1671 and had died in 1719, the year she had stopped teaching at Hogwarts. The Wallichs appeared to be of German descent; Hermione knew that Dorothea had worked and published works of Alchemy in Germany before coming to Hogwarts to teach. Her mother, however, had been a Flamel, Helen Caroline Flamel, married to Eberhard Wallich in 1666. Hermione smiled when she thought of Nicholas and Perenelle. Even the library books had told her Dorothea was a descendant of theirs.

Following the line down into the present, Hermione noticed two remarkable things: For one, Dorothea had had a son, Marc; he bore her name, Wallich, while a father was not specified. She must had had an illegitimate child, Hermione realised. Vaguely, Hermione wondered whether the son might have anything to do with Dorothea's reasons for leaving Germany and coming to teach at Hogwarts. However, when she checked the family chronicle, she did not find any more information on the subject, so she did not dwell on it.

The other remarkable thing Hermione found at the end of the line. Marc had had a son and two daughters; like all female descendants, the latter were not followed up by the family tree, as they had married into different wizard families with their own family trees. Of his three grandsons, one had died in infancy, while the other one had never married. Similarly, in the following generations, the family tree did not branch out much; by 1900, the line ended in an Eleanor Wallis, whose name was marked with a square mark. Hermione smiled to herself when she saw that Eleanor Wallis' mother, who had been married to Hartwig Wallis, was one Violet Weasley. Surely, all wizard families had intermarried repeatedly, but to have it black on white that Ron was related to the Grey Lady, if only by marriage, somehow pleased her.

Holding this family tree in her hand, Hermione wished for nothing more than a Muggle photocopying machine. All quick-copy quills in the world could not work as promptly as one machine. However, she had to use the tools at hand. Holding the quill up so the witch behind the desk could see it, she asked: "Am I permitted to use this for copying?"

The witch frowned, but maybe she could not think of a reason to forbid the use of the quill.

"As long as you don't get ink stains on the book," she replied.

Hermione set up parchment and quill and was about to start the time-consuming copying process when she suddenly thought better of it. Instead, she carried the family tree to the witch and pointed at the square mark behind Eleanor Wallich's name. "Excuse me, what does this sign mean?" she asked politely.

"It means that Eleanor Wallich married a Muggle, had no wizard children, and therefore the line died out," the witch replied crisply.

Even though she suspected a sinister attitude behind the witch's words, Hermione asked on: "Is there any way to find out more about this?"

"This would be a typical case for the file globe," the witch replied. "You can check if you want. However, I am warning you that each generation you check will cost twenty-three sickles."

Hermione smiled wryly. "I know. I'll see whether I need it."

She checked the family chronicle again to see whether it held any useful information on Dorothea Julia Wallich, but she found nothing she did not know already. Besides the family tree, the book seemed of little interest, so she set her quill to copying at last and thought about how to proceed.

There was no history to be found here in this place, just genealogy. In her research about the four ghosts of Hogwarts, this seemed to be of little interest. However, Perenelle had sent her here, and surely she had not only wanted Hermione to see that Dorothea Julia Wallich was of Flamel descendance; Hermione had known that before coming here. Therefore, there was a secret to be found at this place, a _relevant_ secret, and Hermione was adamant she would uncover it. Maybe, of course, the secret did not have to do with the Grey Lady, but with one of the other ghosts. While the quill was scratching away to copy the family tree, Hermione therefore asked for the chronicles of the Slytherin family. Although she hated to admit it, the Bloody Baron, Marvolo Slytherin, was the ghost who fascinated her the most, because the sinister stories she had read about him somehow were more interesting even than the famous Alchemist.

The Slytherin chronicle was different from the first, even though it looked the same on the outside. Somehow, the paper was of a better quality, of a rich cream colour and rimmed in pale gold. The family tree was not folded into the back of the book, but came extra in a gilt wooden tube. Even in an archive like that, Hermione mused, riches could buy more comfort.

Once taken from its tube and unrolled, the family tree, an unblemished piece of the best parchment money could buy, showed that the line of Slytherins was long, but narrow. Following the tree up into the ninth century to the ancestors even of legendary Salazar Slytherin himself, Hermione saw son follow upon son, but besides the heirs, the Slytherins had not produced a great number of children. Vaguely, she remembered the Slytherin curse, which said the family should bring forward no more sons. Spoken in the early nineteenth century, it surely could not have worked backwards, could it?

Soon Hermione found Nero Slytherin, the sinister grandfather of the Bloody Baron, murderer of Muggle-born children and aim of the Slytherin curse spoken by the folk magician Gill Eston. As she remembered, in spite of his four marriages, each of them terminated by the premature death of his wife, he had had only two daughters, Eileen and Emily. While Emily, the older one, bore the already familiar square mark and had obviously married a Muggle, the younger one, Eileen, had been blackened out on the family tree: Lightening her wand for a brief second and holding it under the parchment, Hermione could make out some letters which seemed to spell her name beneath the blot of ink.

Eileen and Emily… Somehow, they intrigued Hermione. Seeing that the quick-copy quill was finally done with copying the Wallich family tree, she set it to its new task immediately. Now there were two more names she wanted to have researched by the file globe, she realised; together with Eleanor Wallich, that would cost her seventy-two sickles, more than four galleons. It was quite a sum, Hermione thought, resigning to the fact that she would leave a lot of money at this place. However, this was not just another school project for her; her conviction that there was something to be found out was steadily growing.

Even though she found the Fat Friar the least exciting of the ghosts, she decided to check his family tree next, so she would have someone more interesting to whom she could look forward for last. If he was truly identical with Fred Friars, a contemporary of the Bloody Baron, the Fat Friar was a disappointingly young ghost, but without the sinister aura of the cruel Slytherin. The only intriguing thing about him was that as a headmaster of Hogwarts, he had been erased from all chronicles. Hermione wondered what the chronicle of his family would say about him.

The Friars family appeared to be descended from a certain Abbot of Westminster; if she read the chronicle right, this position had passed from father to son for many generations. Hermione found this in itself remarkable and wondered whether the family of Hannah Abbot had a similar history.

The great-grandmother of Fred Friars, whom Hermione believed to be the Fat Friar, was Helen Friars, Duchess of Hufflepuff, another coincidence Hermione found noteworthy. Apparently, unlike his clerical forefathers, Fred had never married. His sister, Martha Friars, however, had married a certain Archibald Caden seven years her junior, bearing him a daughter called Alison Caden in 1904. No further information was given. Once more, a family tree ended in nothing – or rather, in no known heirs bearing the family name. Somehow, it struck Hermione as odd that all the three family trees came to some kind of stop just around the turn of the last century, but she didn't know what to make of it.

She would ask the witch behind the counter, she decided. Approaching her, she said:

"Excuse me, could you perhaps tell me whether it is coincidence that all three families seem to simply disappear around the turn of the century?"

The witch regarded her over the top of her spectacles. "Well, it might be coincidence, though it is likely to be influenced by the last Great Disease, of which you have surely heard."

Hermione had never heard of it; shamed by the witch's assumption, she shook her head.

"I am sorry, but I don't know what you're talking about," she said.

"Every century or two, diseases come up which kill only pure-blooded witches and wizards," the witch started to lecture. "It is not entirely known what causes them, but they seem to be connected to pure wizard genes. There was a very severe case around the end of the nineteenth century, and it was noticed that half-bloods did not fall ill. Back then, many witches and wizards believed they had to marry Muggles to keep the magic race alive. Unfortunately, many intermarriages of wizards and Muggles came to nothing – all they brought forth were Muggle children. Today, some believe that these Muggle children went on to become the parents of Muggle-born witches and wizards, but this was never proven. Therefore, I believe the whole practice a misfortune only fit to dilute wizard blood and foul up many of our greatest family trees. You see what these families came to – the Wallichs, and even the noble Slytherins: They married Muggles, and the family name fell into ruin."

Hermione thanked her and pondered this. The witch's unkind words regarding Muggle relatives angered her once more, but in spite of this, she was fascinated. She knew enough about Muggle science to believe her story could be possible, not due to a strange, magical curse, but to something as ordinary as genetics: If there was such thing as a magical gene, it was prone to certain illnesses. If you were parented by a witch and a wizard, you might get the illness, while Muggles and people with Muggle parents were immune. It made sense – it might be a possible reason for so many marriages between magical and none-magical people, if such trivialities as love weren't reason enough.

Having set her spare quill to copy the family tree of the Friars, she finally asked for the chronicle of the de Mimsy-Porpingtons. The witch gave her a crumbling, surely ancient book. Most of his pages were empty, Hermione found. Nearly Headless Nick's first known ancestor dated back to the thirteenth century; more than two hundred years later, the last of the de Mimsy-Porpingtons, aged forty-six, had been beheaded without leaving an heir. For more than five hundred years, the book appeared to have been waiting for her without any more additions. At least now Hermione knew Nearly Headless Nick's birth date, the twelfth of March 1446. She wrote it down into her notebook, not even feeling a need to copy the comparatively short family tree: There was nothing in it that seemed interesting, not even the family names of the de Mimsy-Porpingtons' wives, and the family's connection to other families.

She had to turn to other sources, she decided; genealogy alone would not do the job. For example, she would have liked to know for what crime Nearly Headless Nick had been executed. However, the family chronicles told her nothing on the subject.

Whom could she ask? The one person she had always meant to ask for books was Florean Fortescue, but between panacea and League, between Malfoy being made Minister and the threat to everything she knew, she had never got around to it. Maybe she could ask Ambrose to Floo to Diagon Alley in the evening? If once she got not only an afternoon off school, but also a trustworthy partner for travelling, maybe it was the perfect opportunity.

However, as Ambrose hadn't come to pick her up yet, she decided she would use the time she had to get a bit more information. She would, she decided, spend the money after all and use the department's file globe, maybe even get more information from the basement on Eleanor Wallich as well as Eileen and Emily Slytherin.

Seeing that her quick-copying quill was done, Hermione took the Slytherin family tree to the witch behind the counter. "I'm interested about finding out more about the last two daughters of the Slytherin family, Eileen and Emily," she said. "Can I use the file globe?"

The witch sighed. "The Slytherins – the extinction of that great, great family is surely, surely a sad story. It is quite natural for you to be interested in this tragedy."

Then she suddenly frowned at Hermione. "But how do you know of – why do you think there were two daughters?" she corrected herself.

"I read of Eileen and Emily in a family chronicle, but it was never detailed what became of either of them," Hermione replied. "I can see that Eileen's name was blackened out in the family tree, but I can't imagine why."

"She must have died in infancy," the witch replied, not looking at Hermione.

"If that was true, they would not have blackened her name – they would have just added her death date underneath her birth date," Hermione objected. When the witch did not reply, she suddenly guessed the truth.

"Eileen was a squib," she said, fitting the pieces of the puzzle into place while she spoke. "Her name was blackened out because it was embarrassing for the noble old wizard family to bring forth a squib. Worse, all Marvolo Slytherin brought forwards were girls, and one of them was a squib, while the other one married a Muggle. What a shame for the family, wasn't it? That's why he married another young witch in old age to have a son at last – his daughters had been a big disappointment for him, and he wanted an heir. But it didn't work, right? He tried to make her have a son in spite of the curse, and something went terribly wrong." Now she was entirely guessing, but the pale face of the witch told her she wasn't far off.

"As I said, it was a terrible tragedy," the witch replied. "You are probably right – back then, families bearing squib children often disposed of them by giving them up for Muggles to adopt, while they told the world the children had died young."

"This was 1911, or probably a few years later, when they discovered the girl couldn't do magic," Hermione said, her sudden anger as cold as ice. "This wasn't the Middle Ages – this was _this_ century! How could they do that – give away their own child just because it couldn't perform to their satisfaction? Didn't the Slytherins love their children?"

"You must understand," the witch said, "this was a different time, even though it doesn't seem so long ago now. For an old family like the Slytherins, a squib child was a great embarrassment."

Hermione didn't want to understand – she only wanted to know. "How can I find out about Eileen? Can I use the file globe for this?"

"You can try," the witch said dryly. "The file globe has a magical connection to all things written down in files or family trees, everything secured in archives. If there is a written record of the squib child's fate, the globe will tell you where to find it. However, if the whole affair has been kept entirely secret, not even the globe can help you."

She would take the risk; but first, she would ask it for Emily Slytherin and Eleanor Wallis, as in these two cases success was far more likely and would show her how the globe worked.

"How do I use the file globe?" she asked.

"You touch your hand to its surface and say the name of the person you are looking for. If there is information to be found, writing of light will appear within the globe," the witch said, pulling her treasure chest towards her. Obviously, she wanted Hermione to pay before trying.

After paying her two galleons and receiving eleven sickles change, Hermione was permitted to follow the instructions. Somehow, she mistrusted the whole procedure. The last time she had been expected to see things in crystal balls, she had found the devices utterly useless. However, as she had paid for the use of this globe, she would certainly try it. She rested her hand on the cool, smooth surface and said: "Eleanor Wallis."

After withdrawing her hand and waiting for a few moments, she could clearly see the fiery writing in the globe's glassy depth: _Eleanor Syldon, née Wallis, Wandsworth, Surrey_.

"These are the Muggle files you have to look into – they will be stored in the basement," the witch told her. Quickly, Hermione wrote down the information the globe had given her. Then she took another two galleons from her purse, received her eleven sickles change and repeated the procedure, saying: "Emily Slytherin."

She had to wait only about two seconds, before the orange, glowing letters appeared within the globe: _Emily Riddle, née Slytherin, Colchester, Essex._

With trembling fingers, Hermione wrote down what the globe had told her. Riddle – Harry had told her that this was the name of Lord Voldemort, of Lord Voldemort's father. If she wasn't mistaken, Emily was the mother of Lord Voldemort, then, the witch who had married the Muggle Tom Riddle Sr. only to be cast off by him later and to die of a broken heart. Emily's father Marvolo, Lord Voldemort's grandfather, must have been so disappointed – and probably, Hermione thought wryly, he had left his deserted daughter without any support, be it moral or financial. Marvolo had also left her newborn child to be raised in an orphanage. He had probably never known that his grandson would grow up to be a great wizard, the Heir of Slytherin, who would wreak havoc in the castle of Hogwarts even as a teenager: Marvolo Slytherin had died the year that Tom Riddle Jr. had been born. If she didn't despise the Slytherin family so much, Hermione thought, the whole turn of events would have struck her as tragic.

Encouraged by her success, Hermione decided to spend most of her remaining money on Eileen. Counting the silver coins in her purse, she piled up six of them; adding her last galleon, she said: "I want to try and find out about Emily, too."

The witch made an inviting gesture with her hand, shrugging at the same time, as if she wanted to say, 'if you want to waste your money, go ahead.' Hermione placed her palm on the globe again and said: "Eileen Slytherin."

She withdrew her hand and waited. Nothing happened. No fiery letters appeared in the glassy depth.

"You might want to wait a little longer – sometimes, the globe takes a long time, and I can't really explain why," the witch commented.

While she waited, Hermione packed all her notes and quills; she returned all the books she had used. Still, the globe offered no information. Probably feeling sorry for her, the witch Summoned one of the green tomes Hermione had so far not used at all; bearing the title '1911', it detailed all witch and wizard births of this year. Hermione felt stupid for not thinking of this herself, but the volume told her nothing: She found Eileen Slytherin's name, but it had been blackened out just like in the family tree, without comment about what had happened to the girl.

While Hermione was still leafing through the pages of the book in disappointment, there was a knock on the door: Ambrose had returned. He greeted her with a smile and a friendly pat on the arm. "Ready to go?" he asked her.

Hesitating, Hermione cast another glance at the file globe. Still, there was no answer.

"Don't worry, dear," the witch said kindly. "If the globe answers your question after all, I will owl you. You are residing at Hogwarts?"

Gratefully, Hermione wrote down her address. "This would be very kind," she said.

"Two sickles for shipping and handling, please," the witch replied soberly.

Knowing she was once more overpaying the Department for Discovery of Lost Lines, Hermione nevertheless gave her the money. If there was any chance to get the knowledge she craved, she would take it. Then she said to Ambrose: "Now I'm ready to go." They said goodbye to the witch and left the department.

Closing the door behind them, Ambrose asked: "So, did you find what you were looking for?"

"I'm afraid I still need to go into the basement to look at some files – if that's okay with you," she replied a bit timidly. "And, er, I'd really love to ask Florean Fortescue if he has any books that might help me. It was interesting to look at the family trees and see who is related to whom, but there are still many things I would like to know."

Ambrose smiled kindly. "Then let's go downstairs first before they close their office. We can always stop by Florean at night for a beer or two, and then you can ask your questions."

Grateful for his kindness, Hermione let him lead her downstairs to the Ministry's Muggle archive. She noticed that he was following small back staircases with chipping paint. Probably there were grander parts of the Ministry of Magic, but Ambrose appeared to avoid them.

The Muggle archive was situated in a darkish, slightly musty room down in the basement. It, too, did not belong to the grand parts of the Ministry; in fact, it looked neglected. However, it appeared to be sufficiently useful for actually having staff, namely an old, thick-glassed wizard shuffling files from one table to the other. When he saw Hermione and Ambrose, his wrinkled face broke into a wide smile. Probably, Hermione thought, not many people came to see him and to ask him for assistance.

Hermione showed him her notes and explained which files she wanted. Quickly, the wizard Summoned two volumes holding Muggle certificates of births, marriages and deaths.

She had been right about Emily Riddle, Hermione realised: Marvolo Slytherin's older daughter had married a Muggle called Tom Riddle and had born a son called Tom Marvolo Riddle, dying in the same year as her father. This confirmed, Hermione turned to the second volume to look for Eleanor Syldon, née Wallis.

The last known descendant of the Grey Lady had indeed married a Muggle called Nigel Syldon; her only daughter, Daisy Syldon, born in 1932, had married a Harry Evans. Just out of curiosity, Hermione asked the helpful wizard whether she could follow the line into the next generation. This required a different volume of files, those that held the certificates of the Evans family. A Summoning later, she held in her hand what she had asked for and looked up what had become of Daisy Evans, née Syldon. When she found out, she was completely taken aback: Daisy and Nigel Syldon had had two daughters, Lily and Petunia. This, she realised, could not be coincidence.

Harry's mother had not been Muggle-born after all; or rather, she had not been entirely without witch and wizard ancestry. In fact, Lily Potter had been a direct descendant of Dorothea Julia Wallis, the Grey Lady of Hogwarts, as well as a descendant of Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel – and so was Harry.

Hermione remembered the pictures Harry had shown her – pictures of a father who looked like Harry, and a mother with vivid red hair. She thought of Lily's great-grandmother, Violet Weasley, and smiled to herself. Harry was related to the Weasley family, however distantly. He had to be something like a sixth or seventh degree cousin to Ron. She could already imagine her two friends' faces when she told them, Hermione thought, warmth rising up in her heart. It was like a little gift only she could give them.

The joy of it washed away the faint, dull pain of not being part of it: Everybody, even Harry, the orphan, had great and famous witch and wizard ancestors; only she, the mudblood, had no noteworthy family tree. Eagerly taking notes, Hermione wiped away such treacherous, dark thoughts. Her discovery amazed and delighted her. Somehow, she felt as if she had found what she had been looking for. Of course, that was a bit silly, she told herself. If there was something truly interesting to be found out about the ghost of the Ravenclaw, this something would not be a blood relation to one of her best friends. It would be something of interest to many, not just to her. However, ratio could not wash away the feeling that she had uncovered a treasure, just as jealousy had not been able to spoil it.

"Imagine, the Grey Lady was an ancestor of Harry's mum," she told Ambrose.

The dark-skinned wizard raised an eyebrow at her. "Really? Well, now that's something." Clearly, he was not truly impressed, only pretending to be to please her. Of course, the discovery meant far less to him than to her.

After returning the files to the old wizard with words of thanks, Hermione told Ambrose she was ready to go. There was no point looking for Eileen Slytherin here before she knew more about her.

Ambrose led her to an old, clean-swept fireplace in the basement. The Ministry appeared to have a number of entries, and Ambrose probably knew them all. Handing her his tin of Floo powder, he told her the direction: "Fortescue, Diagon Alley."

Hermione nodded and helped herself. Repeating his words, she travelled towards the ice-cream selling League member by speeding through the strange and dusty channels of the Floo network.

Ambrose and Hermione arrived in Florean Fortescue's living room in a cloud of dust and ashes. Florean was in a heated discussion with a guest; Hermione was surprised to recognise Roary Lyons as the wizard relaxing in one of Florean's squashy armchairs.

"Wow, look, we've ran into a meeting of our superiors," Ambrose commented. "Hello, Mr. President, nice to see you. Any progress on our little American project?"

Roary cast Ambrose a look that wasn't exactly kind. "Ambrose, may I remind you that as a member of this organisation, you are sworn to secrecy?"

Ambrose swallowed his reply, a visibly physical process; it was the first time Hermione had ever seen him look embarrassed. "Sure, Roary. My apologies," he finally said.

The implication of the dialogue began to sink in. Hermione cast Ambrose a questioning look. Ambrose shrugged. Roary was the president of the League? Surely she had misinterpreted the remark.

"So what can I do for you?" Florean asked, obviously trying to ease the tension.

"We just stopped by to say hello," Ambrose said. "We were hoping to have a beer or two with you. Also, this young lady wanted to ask you about history books, especially something on the history of the four ghosts of Hogwarts. We've just been to the DDLL, and she is hoping to complete her studies beyond what is available in Hogwarts."

Florean thought for a moment. "Yes, I think I may have just the thing. Ambrose, get the beer, please – you know where it's kept." He tossed the Unspeakable a set of keys. Obviously, this was not the first time Ambrose stopped by here to have a beer – or two, for that matter.

Left alone, Roary and Hermione found themselves eyeing each other. Hermione did not quite know what to make of him, maybe because he was too complex. Roary was the easy-going American friend and band member of Professor Varlerta, the highly attractive singer admired by females, but only interested in men. He was her Potions teacher and therefore someone she had learned to call 'Professor' – someone whose class she had just missed today, someone who was obliged to forbid her drink beer with the adults tonight. Was he really a League member, what's more, the highest-ranking League member there was? At first, she found it hard to imagine. Then she wondered whether it might be true.

"You're not telling me anything, because I'm too junior to know about such things." Although phrased and intonated as a statement, Hermione was expecting a confirmation or denial as response.

"If my status was known, I'd run a very high risk of being assassinated," the American wizard replied. "We've had spies in the League before. Nobody believes you are one of them, mind you – but we have certain policies regarding the distribution of knowledge, and they apply to you, too. Please don't spread the news."

So it was true. Amazed, Hermione was quiet for a while. Then she said: "The other League members don't keep their status secret. Everybody knows that Penthesilea is a League member, for example."

This might be less than polite, but Hermione felt she had to know. If she didn't ask, she would think Roary a coward. She would respect him and the whole organisation less. Being a League member was risky; she knew she would get in trouble at school if she was ever caught sneaking off to the League camp for nightly meetings. She didn't want to think that the head of the organisation let others take risks in his stead.

"That was her decision, and I would have advised her to keep quiet about it, just as I advise you not to tell anybody about your own membership," Roary replied. "You know how many League members were assassinated even before magical Britain elected a Voldemort-friendly government."

Before she could reply, Ambrose returned with the beer. He set one slim bottle in front of each of the four chairs.

"You don't happen to have brought some Butterbeer?" Hermione asked, very conscious of the teacher's presence.

Ambrose tapped the bottle with his wand. "_Tauscher_!" he said, and her beer turned into the popular low-alcohol wizard beverage.

Now Florean returned with three books which he placed on the table in front of Hermione. "These should help you," he said. "I've set the nagging spell to three months. If you still need the books after they've become a nuisance, tell me and I'll re-spell them for some time."

Seeing her questioning look, he explained: "I like my books to be returned to me. If you keep them too long, they start grumbling."

Books were too fascinating to Hermione to keep them on the table. She picked one up and looked at the table of contents. The chapters apparently detailed several events in medieval and Renaissance wizard history. One chapter heading struck her immediately: _The orphanage battle, 1492. _Nearly Headless Nick's death year, she thought. Unable to resist, she opened the book at the beginning of the chapter while the males started drinking their beers.

Her eyes glided over lines and lines of writing, taking in the most important aspects in full speed. Later, she would re-read the whole thing and take notes, but for now, all she wanted was a quick impression. The chapter detailed the ancient practice of killing Muggle-born children – and killing their Muggle-born parents if necessary, too. A group of witches and wizards had decided to fight that practice; they had set up an orphanage where they kept Muggle-born children safe and taught them how to do magic and how to defend themselves against pureblood fanatics.

In the year 1492, the orphanage had been overrun by a group of fierce wizard warriors. While several witches and wizards had been able to get away with some of the children, others had held the invaders at the door, only to be killed or captured.

Dismayed by what she was reading, Hermione came to the paragraph which chilled her the most. According to the law of these days, it was forbidden to hide or raise Muggle-born children. The heroic witches and wizards who had risked their lives for the children were seen as criminals before the law. As such, their act of self-defence was seen as murder. One member of the defenders, who had killed several attackers at the battle, was sentenced to Death and publicly executed on October 31st, 1492 – Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington.

Hermione found it hard to believe that such a pretentious, silly person like Nearly Headless Nick had died for such heroic reasons. Maybe he was a true Gryffindor after all! Deciding she would read the whole chapter before she went to sleep, Hermione closed the book. She didn't want Florean, Roary and Ambrose to think she was impolite, after all.

The rest of the evening turned out quite entertaining, although nothing of true importance to Hermione was discussed. Florean and Roary talked about rock music; convinced that at her age, she had a special interest in them, Florean played a number of newly released CDs to her. Hermione smiled politely, amused that such important wizards as Florean and Roary would care so much for something she found so secondary. Ambrose told some decidedly off-colour jokes about Lucius Malfoy; nobody seemed to believe that as a minor she wasn't fit to hear them. Suddenly she realised that they saw her almost as an adult; not even Roary, sorry, Professor Lyons, believed she was someone who needed special protection from the world. He would have let her drink real beer, too, she realised.

Only after eleven o'clock, quite past Hermione's usual bedtime, Ambrose asked her whether she wanted to go home. She said she did; she was enjoying herself, but she knew she had to rise quite early in the morning, and she still wanted to read the chapter about Nearly Headless Nick. While everybody was saying their goodbyes, she hid a yawn behind her hand. It had been a long, long day.

The post office of Hogsmeade with its large, public Floo entrance was closed, of course, so Ambrose told her to Floo into the fireplace of Fred and George. Of course, this meant another delay for them, because they could not possibly use their fireplace without even saying hello.

They found George, Fred and Angelina seated at the kitchen table, brooding over marketable devices that would drive future generations of teachers and parents insane. Hermione took care not to eye the three of them curiously. Ginny had told her that during Fred's illness, his girlfriend Angelina had become close to George, and that things were a bit confusing between all of them. However, it was none of her business, she told herself, and on first sight, the trio seemed quite agreeable and happy. They offered Ambrose and Hermione crackers and more beer, but Hermione declined, longing for her bed, and Ambrose followed suit. They walked the distance to their broomsticks, which were chained to the wall of the post office, and zoomed home.

Hermione let Ambrose open the front door of the castle, keeping from him the fact that she knew the magic word to open it, too: He wasn't exactly a teacher, but rather a fellow League member who had to suspect she knew how to leave the castle, but you never knew with chaperones. Be they teachers, parents or other friendly adults: One minute they trusted you with almost everything, one minute they seemed to believe you couldn't tie your shoelaces on your own.

Ambrose said goodbye to her with a half-hug and waved away her words of thanks for taking her to the Ministry. In good spirits, but very tired, Hermione climbed up the stairs to Gryffindor Tower and sneaked into her four-poster bed.

She knew it was time to sleep, and she reminded herself how tired she had been, how eager to get into her bed. Now that she was lying in it, however, she felt her mind twist and turn the event of the day over and over again. Before her tired, closed eyes, all she could see was family trees, neat inch branches on yellowish parchment or hemp paper. In spite of her exhaustion, she couldn't sleep. After trying for twenty minutes or something of that kind, she gave up. Sighing, she fetched her wand and Florean's book over Nearly Headless Nick from under her bed. She re-closed the curtain and lit up her wand to have light for reading. Skipping what she had already read about the orphanage battle in 1492, she read on to find out what had happened to the children Nearly Headless Nick had helped hiding.

His co-conspirators, it seemed, had successfully hidden and raised the children, who later became powerful adult witches and wizards, adults who could look after themselves and needed no more protection. Many old and honourable witch and wizard families had descended from these children – the Peasegoods and the Lovegoods, the Boots, the Finnigans – and the Potters. Hermione almost gasped when she came across the name Tom Potter, a Muggle potter's son, who had grown up to become a prominent fighter for Muggle-born rights, and the ancestor to a long line of Potters.

Harry again! Could that be true? Extinguishing the light of her wand, Hermione frowned into the darkness. After the Grey Lady, here was another ghost who somehow had to do with Harry's family history. It had to be a coincidence, she told herself.


	34. Draco

**34 ****–**** Draco**

Coming to the Slytherin Mansion and appearing before the Dark Lord himself was promising to be one of the greatest moments in Draco's short life. Their teachers and leaders, Ludmila Davies and Mr. Petrodent, had prepared them by telling them how to behave in front of You-Know-Who. As if Draco had ever considered misbehaving in his presence! All their lectures about just speaking when addressed, bowing and addressing You-Know-Who as 'Lord' were only needed by total morons like Siegfried Rechter, Draco explained to Chad.

A group of American students had arrived at Durmstrang four days ago. Together with the Durmstrang students, they had undergone the last section of their training. Mainly, this training had involved channelling the energy of other people's spells. Ludmila Davies had spoken a multitude of destructive curses through them, scorching half the area around Durmstrang. They had also learned to administer the _Eliminatus_ curse themselves. Draco had managed to annihilate a newborn mouse, which was far better than Rechter's best performance, the annihilation of an ant.

Nobody except Draco seemed to wonder why they never annihilated anything big together as a test run. True, it seemed a bit wasteful to practise an _Eliminatus_ curse on a random building full of people, but didn't the teachers always tell them that Muggles didn't matter? Draco would have liked to ask why they didn't make some Muggle office building disappear, but he didn't want to be too cheeky. The servants of the Dark Lord were no people with whom he wanted to mess around.

Their training sessions completed, the thirty-four boys from Durmstrang and Boston Magical High School prepared for travelling to England on Durmstrang's large ship. They had been told that the ship would use an invisible network of underground rivers connecting all streams, lakes and oceans in the world for the use of wizard transportation. Draco found the whole construction rather unlikely, but he was excited about using this strange way of travelling. He packed his best robes, magically cleaned all his shoes and fashion accessories, and acquired an extra bottle of hair potion. For the Dark Lord, he would look his best. Chad did the same, of course, and while the American made a much better picture than subhuman creatures like Crabbe, Goyle or Rechter, he did not look quite as grand as Draco did.

Just before they had to leave, Mr. Petrodent surprised them by announcing he would not go to the Slytherin Mansion with them. He had errands of his own to do, he explained before their assembly, errands the Dark Lord wanted to have carried out before their mission at any rate. He sounded so much like a secretive agent that everybody believed him immediately.

The journey on the ship resembled a dream. The boys stood on the deck of the ship while bizarre, inexplicable images passed by. Draco could never have explained how their underground travelling really worked, or where exactly they had travelled, but after a few hours of wondering, they found themselves on the glistening lake near the Slytherin Mansion.

Around Durmstrang, summer was a brief and sometimes rather chilly affair. Here, in England, summer meant flowers and the smell of hair, and a lot of sunshine between rainy showers. As soon as he smelled it, Draco remembered. He could not help thinking he was coming home. Briefly, he thought of the lake at Hogwarts, of its grassy banks and of the Giant Squid. All that would soon be no more. It took him some effort not to regret this.

Ludmila Davies led her students up to the Mansion. It was a stately building, recently saved from ruin and enlarged considerably to hold large numbers of Death Eaters; its park, however, was neglected, turning into a wilderness. In his mind, Draco had a number of gardeners tend to the overgrown maze and cut the hedges to re-achieve the place's stateliness, but it seemed the Dark Lord had no need for such things.

The boys were assembled in the mansion's great dining hall. There a nameless Death Eater spoke a few greeting words, saying they were welcomed in the rows of the Death Eaters and would do the Dark Lord a big favour. Draco guessed that names were not mentioned here unless it was necessary: Here, at the sanctuary of the Dark Lord himself, everybody had to fear treachery. Although steps had been taken to legalise being a Death Eater since his father was Minister of Magic, things were still dubious. Secrecy also was a means against Veritaserum, as nobody could reveal what he didn't know.

While the Death Eater said a few rather boring things to the students, Draco looked around for familiar faces among the adults. In a corner, he thought he saw Snape eating dinner at a table, talking to a grey-haired wizard, but he might be mistaken. Then he spotted his father deep in conversation with a few Death Eaters. He did not cast a single look at the group of students. Draco found this disturbing, if not insulting.

The boys received a decent meal and were shown to some simple dormitories where they could leave their luggage. They were asked to tidy themselves up before being brought to the Dark Lord. Draco felt his heart beat excitedly. What would the Dark Lord be like? How would he look? What would he say to them? Would he order them to be branded with the Dark Mark? How would he like Draco? Would he notice his well-tailored robes and his new haircut?

Finally, the great moment had come. The Death Eater who had spoken to them earlier assembled the students as well as Ludmila Davies to take them into the Dark Lord's chamber. Resisting the urge to tuck at his collar one last time, Draco followed.

Unlike the dining hall, which was large, but plain, the Dark Lord's chamber was large and stately, far more colourful than the crowds of black-robed Death Eaters lining the walls with their silver and green tapestries. Mirrors in gilded frames, marble columns and green velvet hangings made a good setting for the golden throne in the centre of the room. The Dark Lord, however, was a disappointment.

He wasn't handsome. He wasn't elegant or well dressed. Rather, he had an ugly, flat face the colour of moulding yoghurt, and he had no hair whatsoever. His nose was snake-like and flat, eyes were red and slit-like, and his wrinkled, limp ears somehow looked like the inside of dogs' ears. Draco could not help thinking that if this was immortality, he did not want it. Quickly, he banned such thoughts from his mind, terrified that the Dark Lord would read them.

"My youngest followers, I have assembled you here to give you your task so you can earn your place in the ranks of my Death Eaters," he addressed them. He had the worst voice in the world, high and screeching. Only discipline kept Draco from mentally replacing the Lord on the throne with himself. How could someone – something – so repulsive want to rule the world?

"I am grateful to your teacher, Miss Davies, for training you and bringing you here," the Dark Lord continued. "I am convinced she has taught you all to channel curse energy and to help me in my grand project."

Ludmila Davies curtsied; as she was a stout, square-faced witch, this looked quite awkward. "I am grateful to serve the Dark Lord," she half-whispered. "Also, I thank the Dark Lord for sending his right hand to me repeatedly to help the training until the last day."

The red, slit-like eyes turned to stare at her. "What do you mean, Davies?" the Dark Lord hissed. More than ever, he reminded Draco of a snake.

"I – I mean Mr. Petrodent, your Lordship," Ludmila Davies stammered, writhing under his stare. "As I am sure your Lordship knows, he came to help me last week and only left to do an urgent errant for your Lordship yesterday."

"Petrodent has disappeared months ago, most likely taken by the enemy," the Dark Lord hissed. Draco realised his voice and face, inhuman and emotionless, were nevertheless expression anger, if not fury. Ludmila Davies looked so scared that Draco wondered whether she was going to wet herself.

"I beg your pardon, your lordship," she whispered, suddenly all but in tears. "Your servant, Mr. Petrodent, has spent the last weeks with us and only left us yesterday. As you had told me you would send him to me repeatedly to help with the project, I believed he was doing your bidding."

"You silly bitch," the Dark Lord screeched. "You have probably opened your doors to an impostor and spy!"

"I am sorry, my Lordship," Davies said, trembling, "I only wanted to do your bidding!"

"_Crucio_!" the Dark Lord shouted and pointed his wand at Draco's Combat Magic teacher. The students from Durmstrang and Boston Magical High School could only stare at the teacher twisting and turning at the floor, screaming and pulling her hair. It was very undignified seeing her like this, her face a distorted mess oozing tears and spit. Draco knew he could never respect her like this. He despised her for making a mistake. How could she have disappointed the Dark Lord so much? He knew he would never permit himself to do this.

When the Dark Lord withdrew the curse, Ludmila was a blubbering wreck in the corner. Draco started wondering about the consequences of the discovery they had just made. If Petrodent had been a spy, what did this mean for their mission?

"Carry her downstairs and get her out of my sight," the Dark Lord said to a hooded figure. "I don't like to have females in this hall anyway." The figure obeyed, shouldering the limp figure of the teacher and leaving the room with her.

"Now, my young followers," the Dark Lord addressed the students again, "I have seen that your teacher does not deserve my gratitude. Nevertheless, you still have a chance to earn it. Others will accompany you to the great mission we will undertake tomorrow."

A figure approached the throne of the Dark Lord, bowed deeply and then knelt before the throne. Surprised, Draco recognised his father, the Minister of Magic.

"Malfoy, what do you want?" the Dark Lord asked rather rudely.

"My lord," Draco's father said quietly, "will you permit me to speak?"

"If you make it short," the Dark Lord snapped. Draco suddenly feared his father would soon be reduced to the same kind of messy leftover as Ludmila Davies.

"If I understand my lord correctly, he believes we have been spied out by the enemy," Lucius Malfoy said with greatest reverence. "This may decrease our chances of success. I beg you, my lord – as the father of one of the students, I beg you – please put off the undertaking, please delay it until we know more about this new danger."

"Do you want to feel my anger?" the Dark Lord hissed dangerously.

"No, my lord," Lucius Malfoy breathed, clearly terrified.

"Then betake yourself and your petty little private affairs away, and do not annoy me with the sight of you again until I call you," the Dark Lord spat.

"Of course, my lord," Lucius Malfoy said; still kneeling, he bowed until his forehead touched the floor. Then he crawled away as fast as he could and hid in the crowd.

Draco was amazed; he knew that his father served the Dark Lord, but he had never known how little respect he received for his pains. In addition, he tried to make sense of his father's objection. Did this mean the mission was dangerous, and that Voldemort was risking all of their lives without necessity?

"Our great mission," the Dark Lord went on as if nothing had happened, "will lead us to Scotland, right to the den of our enemy, to the castle of Hogwarts. There we will show that we are superior to the vermin of mudbloods and Muggle-lovers." His shrieking voice was rising now as if over a storm, suddenly taking Draco with it. "Our enemy is weak and scared, hiding behind his walls. We will overcome these walls – we will make them _disappear_!"

At this last word, Draco heard a roar of applause rise among his fellow students. He joined in, stricken with the general enthusiasm. Of course they would make it; they would defeat Hogwarts and its silly spies.

At the slightest wave of the Dark Lord's hand, the tumult died down immediately.

"Do not give heed to the silly warnings of your elders," he now almost whispered. He seemed to look directly at Draco, who felt the blood rise into his face. It had been wrong, he realised, to doubt like his father. The Dark Lord would lead them all into glory. The Dark Lord went on:

"You, who are young and brave, have the power to succeed. Some of your elders have seen defeat and treason, and they are weakened by it. They are weakened by doubt. Never doubt me, my young followers, and you will quickly rise to glory in my ranks, and to powers of which you have never dreamt."

A moment of absolute silence rang in Draco's ears. Then, the Dark Lord asked softly:

"Will you follow me to Scotland tomorrow to erase the vermin of Hogwarts with me, students of Durmstrang and Boston Magical High School?"

"Yes!" the boys shouted as one. Draco felt joy rise in his chest. Of course they would follow and do the Dark Lord's bidding."

"So be it," the Dark Lord responded coldly. "Now go to your rooms and get a good night's sleep."

The students bowed and left the grand chamber. In the hallway, someone tugged Draco's sleeve. Draco turned, half-fearing to see his disgraced father. To his surprise, he found himself staring in Snape's black eyes. Next to him, the grey-haired Death Eater Draco had noticed earlier was obviously waiting for Snape.

"Good luck, Draco Malfoy," the former Potions Master said to him. "May we meet again."

Snape's grey-haired companion emitted a short, mirthless laugh.

Now, what was all that supposed to mean? Did Snape, too, believe their mission too dangerous? Did he belong to the group of cowardly elders who were no more fit to serve the Dark Lord, who were only waiting to be replaced by this energetic, fearless younger generation? Before Draco could ask, however, Snape and his companion had disappeared into the crowd.

Shrugging Chad's questioning look away, Draco followed his fellow students to the dormitories. Tomorrow, they would be victorious, no matter what the cowards said.

The next morning, the boys were lead to the ship of Durmstrang by six hooded, faceless Death Eaters. There they were awaited by the Dark Lord himself and a pale, trembling Ludmila Davies. Draco thought that his teacher looked slightly insane. He wondered why the Dark Lord was taking her on this mission if she did not deserve his trust, but maybe she was needed.

A seventh hooded Death Eater appeared, carrying a pack of broomsticks. Draco counted; his pack contained eight broomsticks. Enough for the Dark Lord and his hooded followers to make a quick getaway, a treacherous voice in his head said. Draco ignored such thoughts of doubt. They would all succeed and afterwards leave the annihilated place with the ship on which they would travel there.

One of the Death Eaters told the Dark Lord they were ready to leave. Draco thought he had heard his voice before; could he be Snape's companion of the day before? Deciding this was a matter of minor importance, Draco let his mind stray to their task.

Maybe the lake of Hogwarts and the giant squid would survive, Draco thought with relief; after all, they needed the lake to enter the strange net of underground rivers they were using for transportation. Suddenly, he wondered what would happen to the grounds if they made Hogwarts disappear. He knew it was not only the castle at which their curse would be aimed, but also everything on the Hogwarts grounds, including a vermin-infested camp of the dangerous League. But could they make the land itself turn into nothing? There couldn't be a hole in the globe, Draco decided as the ship slowly sank into the lake in front of the Slytherin mansion: The land had to stay, and only everything of its surface would be erased from space and time.

The ship journey was as strange and otherworldly as ever. Awed, the Americans, who were not used to this means of transportation, stared around, just as on the first journey. Draco was actually starting to enjoy it. He decided he would like a ship like that, too, for his own, private travelling. Once he had got ahead in the ranks of the Dark Lord, he would certainly own one.

At last, the ship surfaced on the lake of Hogwarts. Draco looked around. Around them were the grounds he had once roamed, abloom with summer. Memories hit him like a smell of childhood. The castle, imposing and beautiful, rose in the background. At last, they would annihilate it. He was glad of it.

"Goodbye, Hogwarts," the Dark Lord said, grinning evilly.


	35. Ron

**35 – Ron**

Content, Ron opened the wooden box to put the granite knight inside. Its Ensouling process was completed, as far as any chess piece could be finished prior to proper training with its whole team. The knight had played today, and it had done well. Taking a look at the little stone figures in the box, Ron felt a smile take hold of his face. At first, he had practised Ensouling by himself on three pawns. They were to be part of the chess pieces he wanted to give to Hermione, chess pieces that would be unique and entirely made for her.

His first piece was a normal, obedient pawn; it was not very bright, but it bowed low and followed every command, regardless of whether it was safe or even intelligent to do so. Then there was his opposite, a pawn whose character was modelled after Ron's first Ensouled chess figure – the notorious Anarchy Pawn. Unruly and impolite, this pawn would eventually do a player's bidding, but if it thought the move unwise, it tended to be rather rude. Then there was a third pawn whose main feature was impatience: It never remained immobile for long, hopping up and down ever so slightly on the board and constantly asking whether it could move yet.

After Ron had completed these three, he had started on the figure which had tempted him the most – the queen. The little figure had turned out just like he had envisioned her: She was the brightest object he had ever created; he had even managed to teach her how to read, and regularly had her read a book on chess. Even though the chess piece complained regularly because her granite eyes tended to tire after three or four sentences, he thought it a spectacular achievement for a chess figure. Once she had gotten the hang of things, she would surpass all other chessmen. Also, he had installed a certain bossiness in her character; once the queen knew all the chess rules by heart, she would be an insufferable know-it-all, he hoped. At any rate, she would be the true leader of the chessmen – and she would command them with a voice strongly resembling Hermione's.

The bishop he had modelled after Harry, remembering the day in their first year when the three of them had battled the giant chess figures to get to the Philosopher's Stone: Harry had been a bishop then. Ron had given the little figure quite a bit of intelligence (but not as much as the queen had): The figure thought before it spoke or moved and was not quick to anger, but if you truly stepped on its granite toes, beware! Moreover, it took the game very personally; if things went amiss, it tended to brood. It was heroic up to the point where it became a bit ridiculous, and it had been taught to refer to the opposing chessmen as 'The Enemy'. Harry, who had to test-play Ron's Ensouled team (completed with his own chessmen) against Ron in the secrecy of the boys' dormitory on a regular bases, had recognised at once who the bishop was supposed to be. He had not been amused, and he had demanded that Ron should shape a knight after himself, also remembering the giant chess set. Together, the two friends had brainstormed about the character the knight should have. Not too flattered, Ron had nevertheless put their ideas into action when Ensouling the figure:

The knight was a dare-devil, a hothead, but very loyal. It tended to defend the queen, regardless of whether this was the player's intention. It fought fiercely, but it flinched before it was struck – Harry had noticed Ron flinch frequently during Quidditch matches, especially if a Quaffle was approaching him directly. Also, the knight liked to bend the rules of chess. If the opponent wasn't watching, the knight would move straight ahead instead of diagonally, landing on white fields only, of course.

Harry had said he enjoyed playing with the knight, Ron told himself with satisfaction while stowing away all the granite figures. The next project would be a castle; he was already thinking about how he could give the figure the character of Hogwarts castle, changeful and unpredictable. After that, there were still nine figures to go. Ensouling a chess set for Hermione was a big project, but Ron enjoyed it.

While he was still contemplating his work, the dormitory's door suddenly opened with a slam. Neville stormed in, white as a sheet. He took his flute case from his trunk.

"Harry, we're under attack. You're wanted in the Astronomy Tower immediately," he said breathlessly and ran off again.

Making up his mind in the fraction of a second, Ron said: "I'm coming with you." Together, they ran down the stairs to the common room.

Hermione noticed at once that their hurry was not a normal one. "What's up?" she asked, leaving her book and quill on the table and rushing after them.

"We're under attack," Ron replied anxiously. "Stay in the common room."

"No way," Hermione replied, catching up with them right outside the Portrait Hole. "I'm coming. I've been learning Counter Curses for weeks."

Of course, they had known for a long time that this might happen. Dumbledore had addressed the students during dinner in the Great Hall several weeks ago. He had told him that the Enemy was likely to attack the castle with an evil curse, and that they should be watchful for suspicious things. During the next three weeks, no less than 7452 suspicious observations had been reported by students, so Dumbledore had called the watchfulness off. However, they all knew they were in danger. Still, very few students had been taken home by their parents. These days, there was danger everywhere.

The Astronomy Tower was fairly crowded. Professor Dumbledore was looking through a telescope; however, he wasn't watching the sky, and Ron was sure he was using magic to see things beyond the reach of the instrument. Fawkes was perched on his shoulder, immobile like a statue. Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick and Ambrose Curtis were standing by the headmaster's side, conversing in low voices. Professor Varlerta, Professor Lyons, Ginny and Neville were setting up their instruments; obviously, they intended to use their music magic for the defence of the castle. The other teachers were nowhere in sight; neither was Romulus Lupin, who had returned two days ago. Ron guessed that they were looking after the other students, trying to prevent chaos and curse injuries.

"There are about two dozen grown Death Eaters, thirty-four boys and Voldemort himself," Dumbledore announced. "Oh, Harry, there you are," he said with a brief smile. "Hermione, Ron, I don't remember calling you up here."

"We'll see to the door and make sure nobody bursts in unannounced, and we'll run errands," Hermione replied matter-of-factly. She was making a statement, not asking or begging. Nobody objected.

"Harry, you will have to assist Minerva, Chent and Ambrose with protecting the castle from the curse," Dumbledore said. "I am hoping that your extraordinary abilities will help us one more time. Meanwhile, Professor Varlerta and her team will try to confuse the minds of the attackers. Once they are weakened, we will attack them."

Ron could not help but stare at Dumbledore. He had always believed his headmaster a kind, slightly mad genius, an old wizard with extraordinary powers – but someone who would never wilfully hurt another living being. Now he knew he was wrong. Dumbledore was made of steel and tough old leather; anybody who thought him too kind to kill was making a big mistake. They were fighting for life and death here – their own lives, but also those of their attackers might be taken. Before the day was over, people would die in or around Hogwarts, or possibly both.

Varlerta, Roary, Ginny and Neville had commenced a low, eerie chant. Their bodies were moving almost imperceptibly to a common rhythm. Ron could feel the air vibrate with tension. All of a sudden, the room around him faded away, giving room to a vision of a glowing river of fire, or was it molten lava? As briefly as it had come, the vision disappeared. Ambrose Curtis, who stood by the window in a position of perfect poise, his wand pointed at whoever might attack them, turned around towards Ron and gave him a strange look. Then he turned back, bent on being alert. Confused, Ron shook his head. This was not the time to worry about visions.

"They are coming," Professor Flitwick murmured, staring out of the window. Somehow, seeing the tiny wizard ready to attack looked funny, but Ron did not feel much like laughing. In a situation like this, a lack of fear could only be attributed to blissful ignorance. Suddenly he wished he had remained in the dormitory where he could pull the blanket over his head and avoid seeing death and battle.

"I wish Severus was here," Professor McGonagall replied softly. "This should be _his_ job." Tiny Flitwick nodded his assent.

Professor Varlerta and her music mages continued chanting. They were now walking in a small circle on the western side of the tower; Ginny and Varlerta were striking their drums. Ron found himself drawn into the hypnotic chant and rhythm. His body seemed to join in and sweetly sing itself to sleep. He pinched himself to keep his senses together. There had to be a reason why he had come to the tower. He had to find a way to be of use in the defence of the castle.

"Get ready," Dumbledore said with a steely voice; Fawkes emitted a single, affirmative craw. This was it, Ron realised; the battle might only take a few seconds. His eyes strayed towards Hermione. For a brief moment, he intended to declare his love to her, right on the spot, because he realised he might never ever get the chance to do so again. However, Hermione was standing next to Curtis now, her wand out, ready to fight. Ron stepped behind her, drawing his wand, but he did not speak. This was neither the time nor the place for sappiness.

Now the sounds of flute and electric guitar rose between the chant and Ginny's continuous drum rhythm. Their magic seemed very strong to Ron; hope rose in him. Would his little sister and her fellow music mages be able to ward off the wicked enemy's curse?

Then the sound of the instruments seemed to waiver, to grow thin and fake, to die away. Simultaneously to the loss of sound, Ron found all his senses weaken; his eyesight faded, and the figures around him became blurred and slightly transparent. He could not feel his body anymore. The typical smell of the Astronomy Tower, old telescope grease, died away. All warmth left him. Desperately, Ron groped for the cloth of his robes just to feel anything at all; for a moment, it felt as if he had neither hand nor robes. This scared him only very indistinctly; simultaneously with his senses, his emotions were disappearing. The room faded to grey altogether, leaving him alone in nothingness.

Suddenly he felt a rhythm; he wasn't sure whether it was his heartbeat or his sister's drum. It reminded him of being woken by Ginny after he had been hit by an ice missile. With the memory, his sensations returned one by one. He was hearing the music of Varlerta's team; he was in the Astronomy Tower, looking at those who would fight the evil curse; he was feeling the floor beneath his feet, the cloth in his fingers, and the room smelled like telescope grease again. Whatever evil magic had attacked him, it had been beaten off for now.

Roary, Varlerta, Ginny and Neville were still playing and singing. They were swaying slightly; sweat was streaming down their faces, and the skin of Ginny's drum as well as Varlerta's guitar strings were slightly bloodsmeared.

"Now," Professor McGonagall hissed. She shot a blast of red light from her wand; so did Flitwick, Ambrose and Hermione. Ashamed, Ron looked down at his own wand, which had fallen to the floor. He bent to pick it up, admonishing himself to have a spell ready for next time. But which spell could he use? His mind seemed empty, and his body felt terribly cold, still remembering the nothingness it had experienced.

Dumbledore, he noticed, had not shot off a spell either; he did not even hold his wand in his hand. Standing in the middle of the room, he rather seemed like someone in trance. Maybe he was doing a different kind of magic Ron did not understand. It had to be something exhausting: The skin of the ancient wizard was grey, and he was trembling; Fawkes was preening his long, white hair. Ron found the look worrisome, so he looked the other way.

Varlerta uttered a sound while continuing to play eerie, disharmonic arpeggio chords. Her utterance was more like a moan, but it seemed that Professor McGonagall took it as a signal.

"The music magic is working on our attackers. They are confused and out of focus, so they can't hold up the curse. This time we'll get them – now!" she hissed.

Ron shot off a Freezing Jinx, the only thing he could think of; next to the others' red blasts, it looked weak and slightly ridiculous, but he decided it was better than nothing.

There were several loud bangs, maybe even screams; smoke rose up from the Hogwarts grounds. Ron was glad of the castle's protecting walls.

"Merlin help us – the children!" Professor McGonagall whispered after a glance out the window. Ron stood on tiptoes, but he couldn't see a thing through all the smoke. Maybe Professor McGonagall could see things he couldn't with the aid of some unknown magic. He wasn't sure whether he wanted her abilities right now.

"Think of the children we've got _here_, Minerva," Ambrose Curtis said softly, his left hand on her shoulder while his right was still holding his wand ready.

"They will go insane out there," Professor McGonagall replied tonelessly, "at best, that is."

Beside him, Ron heard a strange moan. Turning, he saw Professor Dumbledore move in bizarre convulsions. It was a scary sight: His wrinkled, usually benevolent face was distorted into a grimace; the eyes were bulging, his cracked, bloodless lips drawn back to reveal his clenched teeth. Fawkes was having trouble staying on the headmaster's shoulder, but he held on tightly.

At once, Professor McGonagall was by the headmaster's side. She put a soothing hand on his shoulder, but she didn't address him. Perhaps, Ron thought, she was afraid that Dumbledore was casting an unknown spell to save the castle, and it might be fatal to disturb him now.

Professor Dumbledore sank to the floor, clutching his shins and moaning. Professor McGonagall knelt beside him and put an arm around him. All the while, Curtis, Flitwick, Harry and Hermione were shooting red flashes out of the window in short intervals, while Varlerta, Roary, Ginny and Neville were still playing. They looked exhausted, but not like they might break down any minute. All of them seemed to be holding out well in the face of the enemy's attack, Ron thought. He was unsure which part to play in it himself. For some reason, maybe due to his long sickness, he didn't have the training his friends had; he did not know enough about combat magic, at least not in the large-scale dimensions they were facing here. He fiercely longed to be useful, although he couldn't bear the thought of killing someone.

Suddenly, Dumbledore made a strange, inhuman noise. Looking at him, Ron felt drawn into the headmaster's sufferings. Again he saw a vision of the fiery stream; it was carrying him with it to a remote place, far beyond the dimensions of the Astronomy Tower. A part of the fiery stream was controlled by the people up in the room where he had left his body; in his mind, he could separate the strands. Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick were emitting a strong flow of energy, continuously battling against the enemy's force. Then there was Hermione's fire, steady, powerful and well known to him; Harry's fire was stronger, but it was not wholly coming out of Harry himself; a large part of it was drawn from a strange, distant source. Separating the strand of Ambrose Curtis, Ron was suddenly looking at a dark-skinned face appearing out of the fiery stream; the face was winking at him, it seemed.

Varlerta and her team were not emitting any fire at all; rather, their music seemed to weave itself into the stream coming to meet them from the other side, a ferocious, greenish fire licking at the walls of Hogwarts castle, trying to annihilate them all. Yet the music in the fire was distracting it, re-directing it, disturbing its focus. There was suffering in all this distraction; Ron seemed to hear the sound of minds breaking. It scared him.

In the midst of all these fiery currents, he saw Dumbledore, fighting two battles at once. Green and silvery energy appeared to wind around his body like a snake, trying to choke him. For a moment, Ron could see Dumbledore as a golden lion with a silver mane, wrestling the snake. Fawkes was attacking the snake with his beak; red fire seemed to flow from his claws. Together, they should have been able to shake off the snake, but something was hindering them; something was draining Dumbledore's strength far more than the snake could. It seemed a distant pain was drawing the headmaster's energy away from the battle, and it was all too human.

"What is it, Albus?" Professor McGonagall whispered at last. The sound brought Ron back into his body, back into the physical reality of the Astronomy Tower where the ancient wizard was half-kneeling, half-lying on the floor.

"Evnissyen, my son," the headmaster croaked. "He is here. Oh, Merlin, let him be safe."

Professor McGonagall gasped; she held onto Dumbledore's shoulders. "You've got to forget about him," she whispered imploringly. "You've got to do battle with us here. We need you. Without you, we will be lost." If Ron wasn't mistaken, there were tears in her eyes. It scared him more than everything else he had seen that day.

Dumbledore nodded, his teeth clenched. With the help of Professor McGonagall, he managed to get to his knees and even to his feet, though he still needed steadying. Seeing him lean on the aged head of Gryffindor House, Ron finally found his own task in the Astronomy Tower.

"Please, Professor McGonagall," he said timidly, "I can hold him up. You have to help with the battle."

Professor McGonagall gave Ron a strange look, but then she helped Dumbledore lean onto Ron's offered shoulder. The headmaster held on strongly, managing to remain upright in spite of his buckling knees. His clawlike clutch hurt Ron's shoulder, but Ron did not flinch; he braced his body to support Dumbledore's weight while Professor McGonagall was hurrying back to the window.

"Alright, I won't think of him," he heard the headmaster whisper. "If he only gets out alive."

Ron had never heard of Dumbledore having a son, and if there was one, it was hard to fathom why this son should be outside with the attackers. However, there was not much time to ponder this; the battle demanded too much of his attention.

On Ambrose's command, the group at the window let off one more set of red flashes. Ambrose sighed, sounding almost satisfied. "That was a good one," he murmured. "I hope they are letting off now."

"All these dead children," Professor McGonagall whispered, infinite sadness in her voice. "How can such a deed be a victory?"

"Think of the children here, Minerva," Ambrose repeated. "We've got to defend the children entrusted to us."

Ron felt relief flood through him. For the moment, he did not give a damn about dead children outside the castle's wall. All he wanted was to go on living, to see another year in the castle. He wanted Hogwarts to win this battle, no matter what the cost on the other side might be.

A sudden shriek made his blood freeze. White like a sheet, Flitwick was pointing to the window. Then a blazing light filled the room. The music of Professor Varlerta's team died away as if it had never existed. A quick glimpse out of the window showed Ron the horrible truth: A glowing green fireball nearly the size of the castle was approaching them with immense speed, threatening to devour Hogwarts and all the people inside the castle. This was the end, he thought; at last You-Know-Who had found a weapon against which they had no defence due to its sheer size and speed.

Dumbledore's body went rigid; his fingers left Ron's shoulder. He whipped out his wand and shouted: "_Parsprototum_!"

Ron felt the floor move underneath his feet; the air was suddenly thick like syrup, so breathing became difficult. Loosing their equilibrium, the people in the tower were tumbling against each other. The blazing green light faded as quickly as it had come. As far as Ron could make out in all the confusion, the giant fireball had turned around, scorching grass and trees on its way back towards the enemy.

"I think that will be the last we will have seen of _that_ lot," Flitwick piped breathlessly.

Still shaken, Ron did his best to steady himself, expecting Dumbledore's hand would return to his shoulder, seeking support. When it didn't come, he turned around in time to see the headmaster fall. As if in slow motion, Dumbledore's body crumbled to the floor. It looked as if muscles and sinews had disappeared, leaving an unconnected array of bones which could no longer stand on their own. The headmaster's blue eyes were wide open, but the light inside of them had faded. Fawkes sat on the floow beside his head. The bird wailed quietly, but no healing tears flowed from his eyes.

With a shriek, Professor McGonagall threw herself onto the floor next to the fallen old wizard. She felt his wrist, then touched his face which had assumed the look of crackling parchment. Finally, she laid his head in her lap, closing his eyes, not uttering another sound.

Slowly, as if unsure what to do now, they all gathered around the headmaster. Ron saw their faces mirroring his own disbelief. Varlerta gave Roary a questioning look and harvested a tiny shake of the head as a reply. Ginny's bloodied hand had sneaked into Neville's, while Hermione and Harry looked disconnected to all the human beings around them. Flitwick seemed tinier than ever like someone dwarfed by the turn of events.

"He saved us," Ambrose Curtis said in a choked voice. "He made the big fireball turn around and burn the enemy when none of my magic could have stopped it."

"He gave his life for that," Varlerta said hoarsely.

"He gave it for us," Roary whispered, amazed.

"Is there no hope?" Harry asked wildly. "Let's take him to Madam Pomfrey immediately. Maybe she can still help him."

"It is too late – he is beyond anybody's help now," Flitwick said after bending over Dumbledore's body. "There are things even magic can't – or shouldn't – tamper with."

Ron moved towards Harry and Hermione; Ginny and Neville drew close, too. His friends looked as confused, as uncomprehending as he felt. Could Dumbledore die? It seemed incredible. The ancient wizard had been their stronghold, more of a protection than the very walls of the castle. Ron realised he had believed Dumbledore to be immortal – or at least, to die in the final battle against the enemy.

In all his numb and confused sorrow, he suddenly saw a glimpse of hope. If Dumbledore had just given his life to finally kill You-Know-Who, all of this would make sense. It would still be an unimaginable loss, but it would not feel entirely pointless any longer.

"Do you think – do you think he killed You-Know – do you think, he killed Lord Voldemort with the fireball?" Ron stuttered.

All eyes turned to him. Then Flitwick slowly shook his head. "I don't think so," he replied. "That's not how – how I believe things will happen." His eyes darted towards Harry.

For a while, nobody said a word. They stood around the sunken body of their headmaster and leader, regarding Professor McGonagall stroking his limp hair slowly and aimlessly.

"But what are we going to do now?" Hermione finally asked. Her voice sounded small and afraid in the silence surrounding them.

Ambrose Curtis seemed to wake up from a trance. "We've got to take a look at the rest of the castle and check the grounds. We cannot be sure whether their lot is dead or gone without a thorough search."

Flitwick laid a hand on Professor McGonagall's shoulder. The Transfiguration teacher did not look up or react in any way. It seemed impossible to leave her here without support.

"Let's go," Varlerta said grimly. "We have work to do."


	36. Harry

36 – Harry 

Finding the bodies in the scorched Hogwarts ground was maybe the worst part of all. There were almost forty dead enemies, most of them burnt beyond recognition. Hagrid and a few of the older students were digging graves in one of the unharmed parts of the grounds; Professor Sprout, Professor Vector and Madam Pomfrey had undertaken the task of magicking the bodies to the graves. Harry volunteered to help them. He had no idea why, but the felt it was something he had to do. He still remembered shooting red, fatal magic at his attackers, remembered the faint jolt his wand had given each time he had hit a target. Telling himself over and over again that the fight had been necessary, that he had only defended his own life and those of his friends and fellow students, was only of limited help. Some of those lying dead in the grounds of Hogwarts might have died by his hand.

They worked in a field of ashes between dead trees and burnt shrubs, locating and isolating the different bodies and speaking Assembly spells which ensured the bodies would not fall apart during their journey through the air and into their graves. A horrid smell of burnt meat lay over the grounds, clawing its way into Harry's mouth and nostrils, causing nausea. He was working together with Professor Sprout. While using her magic steadily and professionally, the Herbology teacher was shedding tears ceaselessly. At first, Harry thought she was crying about the dead plants, about the beautiful old trees in the ground which would never bear leaves again. Then he heard her sob: "These two are former Slytherin students – Crabbe and Goyle, I'm sure of it! I remember them from my classes."

He turned to look. Surely, from the bulk of their bodies, the two dead looked like Draco Malfoy's former cronies. For a moment, he wondered whether Draco Malfoy had fought with them, and whether he was among the dead.

"They sent our own students here to kill us – or to be killed by us," Professor Sprout sobbed. "None of us will ever forget this." She clenched her teeth. "We will never give in to You-Know-Who, not even now, especially not now. We will avenge the deaths of these students, and if it's the last thing we ever do. Dumbledore will lead us into victory."

Harry bit his bottom lip and kept on assembling a crumbling pile of ashes which had once been a human being. He did not contradict her.

The day before, right after the other participants in the Astronomy Tower battle had checked that nobody else in the castle had been hurt, Flitwick and Varlerta had called them to a meeting. They asked if anybody had told anyone of Dumbledore's death. All of them shook their heads mutely; they had been too scared and to confused to talk about the loss they had witnessed.

"Good – keep this an absolute secret then and defend it with your lives," Varlerta had told everybody. "If I am not mistaken, Voldemort will attack us the moment he finds out that Dumbledore is no longer among us. Without Dumbledore we are close to defenceless. You have seen what he is able to do, and if he sends such a fireball towards the castle again, I believe there will be numerous, maybe hundreds of deaths. The fewer people know, the smaller is the chance he will find out by hearsay. Do not tell your closest friends, your lovers or your families. We must even keep it from the other teachers of Hogwarts. All of our lives depend on secrecy now."

"You can't pretend forever that Dumbledore is still alive, can you?" Hermione retorted grimly. "People are bound to notice they never see him around the castle any more."

"My predecessor, Professor Snape, left an enormous and meticulous collection of body samples in his storeroom," Roary replied. "With it, I found a note stating that he has found a way to magically preserve the hair, so that even if one of us dies, a living person can assume his or her looks by Polyjuice potion without Transforming into a dead person. With his hair supplies of Professor Dumbledore, it seems we may be able to fake things for a long time."

Hermione shuddered. Harry could clearly see she did not like the thought of Transforming into someone who had died. However, as much as he hated Snape, he had to admit that the former Potions Master probably had known what he had been doing.

Now, working side by side with Professor Sprout, Harry found it strange to know something of such importance and not be allowed to tell her. After all, she was a teacher, and Dumbledore had trusted her. However, he accepted the decision of Professor Flitwick, who, after all, had been elected third in command by Dumbledore's order.

Later that day, they laid Dumbledore to his last rest in the ancient mausoleum situated in a lonely corner of the Hogwarts grounds. Harry learned that all headmasters of Hogwarts were buried below the plain white building. He had never noticed it before and wondered whether the mausoleum was usually concealed by spells, but he didn't ask.

Dumbledore's funeral took place in secrecy. Only those who had seen the headmaster die were permitted to attend or even know about it. Roary, Ambrose, Harry and Ron bore the coffin; they were covered with Harry's Invisibility Cloak and Dumbledore's own Cloak until they had entered the building. Behind them walked a stony-faced Professor McGonagall. Seeing her that day had deeply frightened Harry: Her raven-black hair, always tied into a neat bun, had turned snow-white over night. For the first time, he realised how old she had to be; he wondered whether she would ever fight as fiercely as the day before again.

Ginny, Neville, Hermione, Professor Varlerta and Professor Flitwick brought up the rear. They all held back their tears, trying to remain inconspicuous. Harry himself felt a pain behind the bridge of his nose that felt suspiciously like tears waiting to break out. However, it seemed he had forgotten how to cry; the pain stayed where it was and did not leave him for the whole event.

The round white building was furnished with a kind of altar only. Flitwick told them to place the coffin between two the candles on it. Roary opened the coffin. The figure in it looked unusually frail, but also peaceful. Dumbledore was dressed in a robe embroidered with silver and golden stars. His white hair and beard shone in the semi-darkness. On his chest was a gold ornament bearing the crest of Hogwarts; Harry had never seen it before. They all placed themselves in a semi-circle around Dumbledore's mortal remains. Flitwick, who apparently presided over the event, said solemnly:

"Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts, we hereby lay you to rest in the mausoleum of headmasters. This place is reserved for those who have served this school faithfully and well. Like many of your predecessors, you have given your life to save Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. For this, for your long and prosperous rulership of this school, and for your many achievements on its behalf we honour you deeply."

On a gesture of Flitwick, they all bowed low.

"Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts, you have made use of the right to name your successor. May she rule this school as wisely as you, and may she succeed in protecting the children of magic as you did." With these words, Flitwick took the gold ornament from Dumbledore's chest and handed it to Professor McGonagall.

"Minerva McGonagall, on behalf of your predecessor, on behalf of the teachers and students awaiting your guardianship, I name you headmistress of Hogwarts," he said solemnly.

"I am honoured, and I accept my predecessor's wish. I will rule Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and give my life for its protection if necessary. May I be worthy," Professor McGonagall replied quietly.

Harry had the impression that the whole proceedings were highly ritualised, and that the conversation between the two teachers was following a prescribed scheme. She did not _look_ honoured, he thought; rather, she looked deadened by grief.

"You know you cannot bear the title openly yet," Roary said quietly, "but this is not done for ceremony's sake only, Minerva. We need you as our leader, just as he asked you to be." Flitwick and Varlerta nodded their assent.

"I will do my best," Professor McGonagall replied hoarsely. It seemed to be all she could say at the moment.

Roary closed the coffin again; together with Ambrose, Ron and Harry, he bore it down the spiral stairs into the dungeon. Along circular walls, coffins were placed on stone shelves; each bore a plaque with the former headmaster's or headmistress' name and dates – date of birth, date of becoming head of the school, date of death. Harry noticed that almost all of them had been head of the school up to their death; almost none of them had retired or moved on to another profession. Being the headmaster of Hogwarts, he realised, was not a job; it was a vocation, and it required giving your lifetime for the school – or even your life.

Far down, after passing many, many coffins, they found Dumbledore's empty shelf. It had been decorated with flowers from the unburned part of the ground, but it bore no plaque. Even if this mausoleum was hidden most of the time, announcing Dumbledore's death in writing was too risky.

They all said their last goodbye to the headmaster, touching their fingers to the coffin and whispering something incomprehensible to everyone alive. Harry watched Flitwick, Varlerta, Roary and Ambrose approach. He waited for Professor McGonagall to move, but when she didn't, Hermione, Ron, Neville and Ginny followed the example of the teachers and the Unspeakable. Still, the new headmistress of Hogwarts did not move; Harry decided she wanted to be the last, so he stepped up to the coffin. He was unsure of what to say. Eventually he whispered: "I don't know what to do without you." Perhaps it was not a very comforting thing to say to the dead headmaster, but it was exactly how he felt.

Finally, Professor McGonagall stepped to the coffin, in her hand a small golden box. She opened the coffin one last time and placed the box in the dead wizard's hands in a tender gesture.

"These are some of the ashes of Fawkes the Phoenix, set aside when he burst into flames last night," she said softly. "I believe this is a part of himself he meant you to have, a wound that will always remember him of you if he rises from his ashes again – although I'm not sure he ever will. – Goodbye, Albus – I believe you take a piece of all of us with you."

With these words, she closed the lid and turned away. There was nothing more to say.

The next two weeks passed as if in a dark dream. No matter how often Harry told himself that even Lord Voldemort would need some time to recover from his defeat in the grounds of Hogwarts, he could not help fearing an attack by day and night. Without Dumbledore's protection, they were more vulnerable than ever. All great fighters among the teachers and even students of Hogwarts, they would fail and fall at the enemy's wand next time. He found it hard to sleep. If he did sleep, nightmares tortured him. In some, he saw the castle as a smoking ruin, everyone in it dead; he heard the high-pitched laughter of Voldemort and saw green flashes shooting from his wand. In others, he was in the Astronomy Tower again, shooting lethal magic at the attackers; only this time, he could see them die. He could hear them scream and smelled his own magic signing their flesh.

Although he knew defending the castle had been necessary, the dead were a heavy burden on his mind. He tried to talk to Ron and Hermione, but somehow he could never find the right words. His friends seemed to feel the same. For hours, they just sat by the fire in the common room, not talking about much. Occasionally, Hermione suggested they should study for the final exams, which were only a few days again, but even she was doing her work only half-heartedly. Getting good marks somehow seemed pointless if Voldemort might attack again any minute.

The exams came and went. None of the sixth year Gryffindors got any particularly good or bad marks; it seemed like even the teachers lacked the energy to examine properly. Even the teachers who did not know Dumbledore was dead were listless: Experiencing an attack on the castle by some of their former students, or maybe burying these students in the Hogwarts ground after the battle, had blunted the edge of everybody's zeal or strictness.

On the day after the last exam, Harry ran into Cho Chang on the stairs leading to Gryffindor Tower. She planted herself in front of him. "You have been avoiding me," she said without introduction.

Harry did not know what to reply. She was right; he _had_ been avoiding her. Knowing what he knew, and not being able to share that knowledge with her, was hard. Whenever he met his fellow students in the common room, those who had not participated in the battle of the Astronomy Tower, he felt they had little in common with him: They had not seen the terror of that day, and neither did they know the danger all of them were in since Dumbledore's death. He had simply not known what to talk about with Cho.

"Just in case you care, I just passed my oral NEWTs – the result of the written NEWTs will be sent to me during the holidays," she told him, obviously quite put out.

"I'm sorry," he replied quietly. "Yes, I do care. I'm glad you passed, and I'm sorry I wasn't with you before your exams. It had nothing to do with you. I haven't been myself since the battle."

"I know." Her face softened a little. "None of us have. It's just – well, you are supposed to be my boyfriend, and you have simply stopped talking to me. My NEWTs were not a particularly good time to have me cry at night because my boyfriend decided to completely ignore me."

Harry felt ashamed. However terribly he was feeling, it would not have been beyond his capacities to hold her hand every once in a while and tell her she would do just fine in the exams. Busy with Quidditch and NEWTs, she wasn't a particularly demanding girlfriend, which had permitted him to ignore her for two whole weeks.

"I'm sorry," he repeated. "Please, forgive me. Everything will be different – I promise."

"Yes, it will," she said bitterly. "My parents will pick me up in about an hour. I will start at Gringott's at the beginning of the month."

Harry stared at her. This was complete news to him. Of course, he knew she was a year older than him, even though he had largely managed to ignore the fact that she would finish school this year. However, they had never talked about what she would be doing afterwards.

"But – is it safe for you to leave the castle?" he asked. Many seventh year students, he knew, were staying, either in the castle or in the refugee camp on the grounds. Between Malfoy's government and Voldemort's unpredictable attacks on his opponents, the world outside Hogwarts had become at least as dangerous as the ill-protected castle, at least to some.

Cho looked down at her feet. After a conspicuous pause, she said: "My parents told me there'd be no danger for me as long as nobody knows I'm your girlfriend. They said You-Know-Who would kidnap me at once if it became known, and they want me to break off contact with you."

All of a sudden, a very funny feeling spread in Harry's stomach. He thought that after the battle and Dumbledore's death, nothing could truly touch him anymore. He found out he had been mistaken.

"Is that what you want, too?" he asked, fearing her reply.

Cho looked up and met his eyes. "Three weeks ago, when they hinted at something like this in a coded owl, I became quite angry at them. I wrote them back that I loved you, and that you loved me, and that I would not deny you no matter what the danger might be. Now I'm not so sure anymore."

"So you've waited to tell me this until it's too late for me to change a thing, because you're leaving today – is that it?" Harry asked. An hour ago, she had been far from his thoughts, but suddenly he was desperate to lose her.

"I was afraid of talking to you before my last exam," Cho replied quietly. "Call me superstitious, but I was thinking I'd totally crack and mess up my marks if I talked to you and we split up. I've been working like a madwoman to make up for all the time I've lost with my illness and – you know."

Her eyes went dark; Harry was sure she was talking about the time when she had been mooning about Snape up in her tower.

"I didn't want to risk all that," she continued. "But today, after I had passed my last exam, I really felt I needed to see you. I didn't want to leave for good without even talking to you."

For a few seconds, they just stood there in silence, looking at each other. Then Harry said tentatively: "I could come visit you in London during the holidays, you know – except for that your parents don't want me to, and that it's too dangerous."

In his heart, he knew that her parents were right: Voldemort _would_ probably kidnap Cho to get Harry in his power. He just wanted very much to ignore this.

Cho nodded. "I've been turning it over and over in my head, too, and I don't know what we can do. If I want to keep things secret, I can't visit you here, either, unless I can find a very good excuse. You will, I suppose, spend your holidays at Hogwarts?"

Harry smiled wryly. "Where else could I go?"

"You know, Harry Potter, the question you are presently not answering me is, do you want to see me or not?" On Cho's forehead, two slim, vertical lines appeared; Harry had only seen her look that way if she concentrated very hard during a Quidditch game. He liked it very much, even though he knew she was angry with him now.

"I do," he said. He took her into his arms and kissed her many times. "I do," he repeated.

"We could send each other coded owls, you know – maybe I could use another addressee for the sake of secrecy – maybe one of the more easy-going teachers, for example Professor Lyons," she said, her forehead resting against his. Harry noticed there were tears running down her cheeks.

"Sure, we will do that," he promised her.

"I'll write out a personal code just for you and me so nobody can decipher or owls if they are intercepted," she promised, wiping her eyes. "My parents can protect me, but they can't keep me from owling you. I'll get a good job and make my own money, and by the time you finish school, we can get our own apartment in London," she said hoarsely.

"Yes, we will," he promised, knowing the danger would not go away even if he finished school in a year. Suddenly he thought of his parents. Had it been the same for them – the wish to be together, to have a life, in the face of a danger that forbid them have a life?

"I need to go pack," she said, wiping her eyes again, because more tears had flowed. "Also, I'll write out a code and give it to you. You need to tell Professor Lyons to give you your letters. I'll meet you in an hour at our own special place – you know, the corridor we used to meet."

He agreed to everything, quite unsure whether or not things were all right between them now. Everything was happening too fast; he felt overwhelmed by the turn of events and did not know how to react. After kissing again and promising each other to meet on the windowsill where Harry had found Cho crying so often during the year before, they parted.

Harry wasn't sure what to do with this hour. There was nothing he wanted to do and nowhere he wanted to go at the moment; he had altogether forgotten why he had left Gryffindor Tower in the first place, but he felt no desire to return there now. He walked about aimlessly until he found himself in their corridor, more than forty minutes too early. He sat down on the windowsill, hugging his knees and waiting for her.

The holidays lay before him like a dark and lonely stretch of time. Cho would leave, and Sirius had not been freed yet. He would miss them both. At least Ron and Hermione would stay at Hogwarts, seeking refuge from a world where Muggle-borns and Weasleys were endangered species. Still, there was no telling how far the protection of the castle would go now that they were without their leader and protector.

Gazing out of the windows onto the sunlit, but grey and burned grounds, Harry wondered about his own future. Where could he go once he had finished school himself? Would there be a future waiting for him, or only a life spent hiding away in dark corners? More importantly, would he be able to hide? Would he, would all the inhabitants of Hogwarts castle even see the end of the next school year?

Harry pushed aside all such worries. There was no point in being afraid; they would have to face the dangers lying ahead of them. They would have to hope that after being steadfast for more than ten centuries, the castle of Hogwarts would keep its students safe for another year.

Of course he would stay here for now, he thought, remembering his words to Cho. Indeed, where else could he go?

**The End**

The street musicians are packing their instruments. It seems they have finished playing for the day. Their small audience is dispersing; people are going their separate ways, never looking back. A smallish, black and white mixture of a dog is carrying around a red felt hat among those who remain; you notice a few crumpled pieces of paper in the hat. Now it is approaching you, liquid brown eyes, floppy ears and all; it is offering you the hat. On its wide brim, somebody has written with a black marker: _Final r__eviews._


End file.
